{ 2  /  ^h 


INSIDE  THE   BRITISH  ISLES 


INSIDE    THE 
BRITISH   ISLES 

BY   ARTHUR   GLEASON 


f 


LONDON      JOHN    LANE     THE    BODLEY   HEAD     W 
MCMXVII 


WE  LONDON   ANO  NORWICH  PRESS   LIMITED,   LONDON   AND  NORWICH,  ENGLAND 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAOB 

I      DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH   ...         9 


II    LABOUR. 

the  social  revolution  in  england 

workers'  control 

democratic  control 

the  pioneers         .... 

reasonable  satisfaction 


19 
40 
61 
65 

88 


III   WOMEN. 

EMANCIPATION 93 

THE      FEMINISTS      OF     THE      WAR      OFFICE      AND 

ADMIRALTY I  ID 

BOWING  THEM   OUT  .  .  .  .  .  II7 

DISORGANIZATION      ......  I30 

ENGLAND'S   POLICEWOMEN  ....  I40 

IV  IRELAND. 

IRELAND  OF  THE  FOUR  GREEN  FIELDS  .  .  .154 

YOUNG  ENGLAND   SPEAKS  .  .  .  .  I?! 

THE   SIAMESE   TWIN 1 75 

POVERTY  ;   THE  REAL  IRISH  QUESTION .  .  .  187 

V  SOCIAL  STUDIES, 

WHAT   OF  ENGLAND  ? 204 

WHY  THEY   WILL   WIN 206 

THE  DECAY  OF   PARLIAMENT      .  .  .  .  2I4 

Y 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAO» 

V  SOCIAL   STVDlES-^continued 

A   BATCH   OF   PAPERS 219 

FREE  SPEECH 229 

THE   RIGHT  OF  ASYLUM 235 

PUBLIC  OPINION 244 

WHERE  THE  LANE  TURNS            ....  252 

;  THE   NEW   WAY 259 

THE   NEW  AMERICANISM    .....  263 

'  NATIONALITY .             .             .             .             .             .             .  27O 

VI  LLOYD  GEORGE 278 

VII    A  LAST  WORD      .         .         .         .         .         .284 

APPENDIX 291 


INSIDE  THE  BRITISH   ISLES 


INSIDE 
THE  BRITISH   ISLES 

CHAPTER   I 

DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH 

This  book  is  necessarily  superficial  and  frankly 
dogmatic  and  impressionistic.  It  claims  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  notes  of  an  American  who  desires  to 
see  good-will  established  between  England  and  the 
United  States.  In  the  furtherance  of  that,  the  author 
has  sought  to  do  his  bit,  as  multitudes  of  better  men 
have  done  theirs.  The  first  great  opportimity  in 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  for  an  Anglo-American 
understanding  has  come.  It  has  come  in  large  part 
because  young  Britons  have  gone  out  and  died  in 
defence  of  the  values  which  created  and  nourished 
America.  It  has  also  come  because  certain  Americans 
recognised  the  worth  of  the  British  sacrifice  for  the 
future  of  all  nations,  and  during  nearly  three  years 
have  sought  to  bring  that  sacrifice  home  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  American  people.  The  unwearied 
efforts  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Frank  Simonds,  Charles 
William  Eliot,  Professor  Prince,  Agnes  Repplier  and 
many  more,  have,  we  believe,  done  much  for  the  future 

9 


no      .  -    INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

pea(i6  of  the  world. '  And  their  work  was  for  long  done 
in  loneliness  and  under  a  bitter  fire  of  criticism.  Let 
us  remember  them  in  these  days  of  richer  friendliness. 
If  the  writing  at  any  point  seems  harsh  to  traditions 
and  aspects  which  are  precious  to  the  British  reader 
because  he  has  a  more  fundamental  understanding 
of  their  inner  meaning  than  the  writer,  let  that  reader 
be  generous  and  consider  the  task  appointed.  A 
section  of  American  public  opinion  (not  a  majority, 
but  a  small,  noisy  and  wilful  minority)  has  long 
cherished  three  emotional'  *'  complexes  "  about  Eng- 
land.   These  are : — 

1.  England  is  a  tyrant  State. 

2.  Democracy,  as  Americans  understand  it,  is 
unknown  in  England. 

3.  England  is  the  persistent  oppressor  of  Ireland, 
a  united  nation. 

These  conceptions  of  modern  England — the  England 
of  the  trades  unions,  women  workers,  the  volunteer 
army,  the  Nation,  the  Manchester  Guardian,  the 
Round  Table,  William  Temple,  Margaret  McMillan, 
Gilbert  Chesterton — seemed  to  one  American  observer, 
at  least,  over-simplified.  So  he  has  tried  to  show 
that  the  English  people  are  making  the  same  fight  as 
the  American  people  against  the  financial  oligarchy 
and  industrial  materialism.  By  the  recognition  of  a 
common  aim  in  the  creation  of  a  good  life  more  inter- 
national S57mpathy  will  be  formed  than  by  vigorous, 
sarcastic  "  leaders  "  on  Irish  affairs,  the  suppression 
of  the  foreign  circulation  of  the  Nation,  the  detention 
of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  the  harrying  of  Russian 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH  ii 

refugees,  the  censoring  of  non-military  articles  written 
by  American  correspondents  in  England,  and  incon- 
sistencies in  the  treatment  of  conscientious  objectors. 
The  police,  the  censor,  reactionary  journalists,  and 
the  Earl  of  Derby  may  be  right  in  each  one  of  their 
drastic  activities.  But  in  binding  together  the  Middle 
West  and  Lancashire,  one  is  sure  that  emphasis  is 
more  properly  laid  on  the  struggle  of  the  British 
democracy  to  be  free,  on  the  continuing  fight  for  per- 
sonal liberty,  and  on  the  good-will  of  the  British 
worker  toward  Ireland  and  America. 

England  has  acted  on  the  world  as  a  principle 
of  release  for  freedom,  sometimes  by  irritating  it 
into  activity,  as  with  the  American  colonies,  some- 
times by  co-operating  with  it,  as  in  Canada  and 
Australia.  The  balance  of  power  has  departed  from 
England  to  a  wider  area.  But  the  principle  of  govern- 
ment which  creates  and  directs  that  power  continues 
to  be  an  EngHsh  principle.  It  is  the  principle  of 
democratic  control.  England  is  no  longer  the  over- 
shadowing power  in  a  union,  but  is  the  equal  among 
equals. 

If  that  extension  of  power  among  her  members  is 
true  of  England  on  her  island,  it  is  also  true  of  her 
among  her  colonies.  Already  the  new  cabinet  has 
called  the  dominions  to  a  special  war  conference. 
This  is  the  first  step  in  a  momentous  change  in  the 
constitution    of   the    empire.^    The    peoples    of   the 

^  See  the  late  Earl  of  Cromer's  essay  in  "  After  War  Problems.'* 
and  the  speeches  of  General  Smuts.  Compare  with  Appendix, 
"  Imperial  Parliament." 


12  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

dominions  are  not  contented  with  their  status,  and 
they  refuse  to  go  on  indefinitely  under  the  present 
arrangement,  which  focuses  all  imperial  responsibility 
in  the  hands  of  statesmen  of  the  British  Isles.  They 
determined  to  have  a  voice  in  foreign  policy,  and 
in  the  creation  of  an  interlocking  imperial  domestic 
poUcy,  which  will  organize  the  resources  of  Canada, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa,  and  India.  The 
constitutional  reconstruction  calls  for  the  continua- 
tion of  the  Imperial  Conference  and  the  creation  of 
an  Imperial  Cabinet.  If  this  reconstruction  remains 
in  the  near  future  no  more  than  a  Conference  and  a 
Cabinet,  it  nevertheless  is  a  constitutional  change  of 
import.  Influence  is  not  government,  and  an  advisory 
gathering  is  not  an  executive  board,  but  influence 
affects  government,  and  consultation  tends  increasingly 
towards  execution.  Also,  certain  problems  will  hurry 
the  informal  Imperial  Conference  and  Cabinet  to  a  more 
responsible  setting  in  relation  to  the  communities 
sending  the  representatives.  Ireland,  "  empire  re- 
sources," immigration,  tariff,  are  four  such  problems. 
The  result  of  this  will  be  the  most  populous,  largest, 
most  powerful  state  in  the  world,  and  that  state  will 
not  be  an  autocracy.  It  will  be  a  commonwealth, 
an  agreement  of  equals.  It  will  act  from  one  will,  with 
one  purpose.  The  operations  of  that  will  inside  so 
vast  an  organism  will  seem  almost  like  a  process  of 
nature.  Its  influence  will  be  decisive  on  the  immediate 
future  of  the  human  race.  Under  the  perfected 
internal  organization,  which  is  the  very  purpose  of 
the  union,  the  food-supply  of  a  fifth  of  mankind  will 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH  13 

in  time  be  guaranteed.  The  land  question  will  grad- 
ually be  solved.  The  balance  of  agriculture  to  industry 
will  be  determined  and  established.  The  problems 
of  labour  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  freedom  of  oppor- 
tunity, and  an  increase  of  productive  power  which 
would  have  seemed  Utopian  to  an  earlier  generation. 
That  commonwealth  will  be  a  league  of  peace  which 
will  give  the  first  stable  basis  for  a  world  peace. 

This  will  be  the  greatest  extension  of  democratic 
control  ever  appHed  to  the  map  of  the  world.  The 
dimensions  of  it  are  so  large  that  the  imagination  even 
of  its  projectors  has  not  wakened  to  what  it  implies. 
A  great  organism  of  democracies,  excepting  only 
India,  will  exist  in  a  world  still  half  in  political  bond- 
age. It  will  carry  its  community  far  along  in  the 
twofold  purpose  of  all  government — ^the  control  of 
environment  and  the  betterment  of  human  relation- 
ships. Suppose  the  bundle  of  states  in  Europe  were 
suddenly  to  be  thrown  together  in  a  vast  republican 
state  of  common  purpose,  determined  on  a  unified 
domestic  and  foreign  policy,  then  we  should  have 
no  more  amazing  entity  than  in  this  plan  of  the  new 
British  commonwealth.  Impossible,  of  course,  for 
Europe,  because  there  is  no  central  principle,  over- 
riding differences  of  tradition,  race,  and  language ; 
but  possible  and  about  to  be  consummated  in  the 
empire,  because  the  central  principle  of  democratic 
control  is  accepted,  and  because  the  kinship  of  blood 
and  language  exists.  And  it  is  all  so  obvious.  The 
synthesis,  once  stated,  demands  its  own  reahzation. 
It  is  like  the  enlightenment  which  the  faithful  believe 


14  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

we  shall  receive  after  death,  when  we  shall  say,  "  Why, 
of  course." 

Such  is  the  dream  which  British  statesmen  will 
proceed  to  put  into  execution  at  the  close  of  the  war. 
It  is  the  war  whose  pressure  has  coalesced  these  five 
democracies,  each  busy  with  its  own  self-contained 
and  isolated  life.  A  common  danger  and  a  common 
experience  of  suffering  forced  the  realization  of  what 
a  thoroughgoing  partnership  would  bring  in  organiza- 
tion for  industry  and  in  the  attainment  of  a  good  life. 
The  war  created  a  highly  desirable  friction  between 
Great  Britain  and  her  colonial  democracies,  which 
revealed  the  present  unsatisfactory  status  and  the 
need  of  a  new  order.  Out  of  that  friction  has  come 
the  vision  of  the  new  commonwealth. 

The  British  democracy  has  three  times  sought  to 
find  a  group  of  leaders  for  the  present  crisis.  When 
the  need  swings  back  acutely  to  the  internal  problems 
of  labour  adjustment,  the  present  Cabinet  will  be 
swiftly  displaced  if  it  fails  to  function  in  the  new 
demand.  The  British  public  has  to  think  in  three 
separate  and  almost  unrelated  provinces.  It  finds 
itself  unable  to  do  this  simultaneously,  so  it  takes 
them  up  in  turn.  It  expresses  that  shift  of  attention 
by  Cabinet  changes.  It  has  to  think  in  terms  of 
domestic  policy,  of  imperial  policy,  and  of  international 
policy.  We  shall  probably  see  a  series  of  Cabinet 
shifts  in  the  next  five  years,  as  each  of  the  three 
great  problems  of  British  policy  is  taken  up.  The 
limelight  will  flit  from  Manchester  and  South  Wales 
to  Ireland,  and  then  to  Australia,  and  then  to  Russia, 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH  15 

and  public  opinion  will  demand  a  very  distinct  set  of 
faculties,  and  therefore  of  leaders,  in  dealing  with  each 
of  these  various  questions. 

Since  the  war  began  many  persons  have  asked. 
Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  of  the  same  merit 
as  an  autocracy  ?  And  the  answer  has  often  been 
No.  But  the  question  fails  to  state  the  problem.  War 
leaders  are  one  requirement,  imperial  leaders  are 
another,  and  the  creators  of  domestic  policy  are  a 
third.    Let  us  state  the  need  in  these  terms  : 

1.  Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  in  peace  times 
who  can  shape  legislation  and  give  guidance  to  the 
democratic  movement  ?  The  mass  of  the  people 
have  developed  a  collective  will,  which  demands  a 
reconstruction  of  the  state,  expressed  in  terms  of 
parliamentary  control  (manhood  suffrage,  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  House  of  Commons  over  the  House 
of  Lords) ;  and  a  reconstruction  of  industry  and  the 
institution  of  property,  expressed  in  terms  of  social 
legislation,  affecting  land  reform,  minimum  wage, 
and  control  of  collective  enterprise,  such  as  mines  and 
railways,  and  further  expressed  in  free  experiment 
outside  legal  enactment,  though  later  to  be  incor- 
porated in  legislative  acts,  such  as  workshop  councils. 
Those  leaders  of  peace  Great  Britain  produced.  Her 
swift  adjustments  to  the  demands  of  modern  self- 
conscious  democracy  have  proved  that  she  is  the 
fertile  mother  of  democratic  initiative. 

2.  Can  a  democracy  produce  leaders  under  the 
strain  of  international  crisis  who  can  carry  through  a 
determined  policy  demanding  organization,  efficiency, 


i6  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

applied  science,  and  a  spiritual  unity  ?  This 
requirement  is  distinct  from  the  requirements  of  a 
wise  domestic  policy.  The  reason  Is  plain.!  The 
dealings  of  a  nation  with  its  citizens  have  reached  a 
level  of  sanity,  intelligence,  and  ethical  decency  which 
the  dealings  of  nation  with  nation  have  not  reached. 
Internationally,  we  are  in  the  jungle.  To  handle 
these  international  relationships  of  greed  and  hate, 
the  nation  has  to  employ  brute  force.  It  has  to  turn 
its  farmers  into  killers.  It  has  to  make  shells  in  place 
of  workers'  cottages.  The  near  future  and  the  long 
future  will  tell  us  the  extent  to  which  Great  Britain 
has  met  this  demand.  The  crisis  is  still  too  appalling 
for  any  smooth  generalizations  on  England's  success 
in  meeting  the  vast  needs  of  the  present  time.  Friends 
of  democracy  can  only  work  and  hope  while  it  is  yet 
night,  believing  that  the  day  spring  will  return. 
This  much  can  be  said :  that  with  an  open  mind  the 
British  people  will  select  their  leaders  according  to 
their  need,  and  that  they  are  instantly  ready  to 
change  their  representatives  when  incapacity  is 
proved. 

3.  Can  a  democracy  solve  the  new  and  immense 
problems  of  creating  a  commonwealth  out  of  many 
nations,  many  cultures,  many  differences  in  economic 
structure  ?  No  answer  is  yet  at  hand.%  Many  voices 
have  been  heard.  The  answer  of  the  late  Lord  Cromer 
is  not  quite  the  same  as  that  of  Lord  Milner.  Lionel 
Curtis  emphasizes  one  consideration,  and  General 
Smuts  another.  There  is  already  a  library  of  books 
and  documents  on  how  to  federalize  free  nations. 


DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  MARCH  17 

Meanwhile  the  French  Canadian,  the  Irish  Sinn  Feiner, 
the  South  African  Boer  are  Hvely  members  inside 
the  Empire.  The  United  States  watches  the  gradual 
working  out  of  the  federalizing  principle  with  sym- 
pathy, because  the  United  States  is  itself  a  congeries 
of  many  nationalities,  and  has  discovered  that  the 
melting-pot  of  standardization  sometimes  fails  to 
operate.  Great  Britain  and  America  alike  will  need 
the  hard  thinking  of  wise  men  in  creating  the  common- 
wealth. 

It  is  not  an  abrogation  of  the  democratic  principle 
when  a  people  turns  to  its  experts.  It  is  one  expres- 
sion of  the  democratic  principle.  For  democracy 
brought  in  two  things  when  it  entered  life  with  the 
organization  of  the  industrial  revolution.  It  brought 
in  a  mass  movement  and  it  brought  in  specialization. 
The  collective  will  must  always  turn  to  experts  to 
organize  its  desires  into  action.  It  will  control  those 
experts,  but  it  will  never  supersede  them.  It  exercises 
its  control  in  the  choice  of  them,  not  in  itself  attempting 
tasks  of  which  it  is  ignorant,  A  democracy  in  itself 
can  liberate  only  an  impulse.  It  cannot  frame 
emergency  measures  by  initiative  and  referendum.  It 
will  always  be  called  on  from  time  to  time  to  pass 
over  its  power  to  a  handful  of  specialists  and  trust 
them  to  use  its  mass  momentum  in  the  right 
direction  toward  the  desired  end. 

The  democratic  movement  began  consciously  with 
the  purpose  of  freeing  the  human  race  from  poverty. 
But  it  has  steadily  undergone  a  broadening  of  purpose 
under  the  pressure  of  its  own  requirements.     It  has 


i8  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

found  that  for  self-preservation  it  must  include  the 
release  of  talent  and  the  creation  of  spiritual  values 
in  its  programme.  To  produce  leaders  and  to  enhance 
the  meaning  of  life  are  as  much  within  its  province  as 
a  proper  standard  of  living  in  terms  of  hours  and  wages. 
It  recognizes  its  need  of  an  aristocracy  of  talent.  The 
leaders  of  the  democratic  movement  state  this.  This 
aristocracy  will  include  social  experts,  artists,  ethical 
leaders,  teachers,  imperial  executives,  organizers, 
and  specialists  in  foreign  policy.  War  is  only  one  of 
the  many  situations  where  the  democracy,  with  its 
distributed  responsibility,  does  not  possess  in  itself 
the  necessary  intelligence  and  unity  of  policy  to  master 
the  sudden  crisis.  The  democracy  is  only  fulfilling 
its  own  nature  in  recognizing  a  diversity  of  gifts. 

But  through  all  the  adjustments  of  the  coming 
years,  calling  for  expert  treatment,  the  principle  of 
democratic  control  will  prevail.  In  time  the  democracy 
will  develop  its  own  tradition  of  policy  and  service  and 
generate  its  own  leaders.  The  common  people  of  Great 
Britain  have  never  spoken.  It  was,  therefore,  believed 
they  were  dumb.  But  they  were  not  dumb ;  they 
were  only  inarticulate.  The  common  people  of  Great 
Britain  have  never  acted  with  common  purpose  to  one 
end.  It  was,  therefore,  believed  that  they  were  impo- 
tent. But  they  were  not  impotent ;  they  were  only 
unawakened.  Now  they  are  learning  to  speak  and  to 
act. 


CHAPTER   II 
LABOUR 

THE  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION   IN  ENGLAND 

The  opinion  has  been  widespread  among  social  workers 
in  America  that  the  war  has  crushed  liberaHsm  in 
England,  They  have  formed  this  opinion  because 
social  work  has  been  postponed,  trade-union  rules 
have  been  abrogated,  dissenters  like  Bertrand  Russell 
silenced,  Russian  revolutionary  centres  in  London 
suppressed.  But  it  is  a  characteristic  of  experts 
working  in  details  to  miss  the  main  currents  of  tend- 
ency. No  friend  of  radical  democracy  need  be  worried 
by  the  results  of  the  last  two  years.  The  blood 
spilled  by  the  working-classes  at  the  front  has  been 
justified  by  the  profound  modifications  wrought  in 
English  consciousness.  A  nation  mobilized  and  under 
arms  is  a  rich  field  for  radical  ideas.  Blood  fertilizes 
the  soil  for  change.  Those  of  the  school  of  Curzon  and 
the  "Morning  Post,"  who  believed  that  the  good  old 
days  of  special  privilege  would  be  restored  by  con- 
scription, are  doomed  to  an  awakening  more  thorough 
than  befell  the  French  reactionaries  of  1790.  For 
this  is  not  an  affair  of  a  few  noble  heads.  It  is  the 
remaking  of  a  nation. 

England  is  taking  strides  toward  co-operative  social - 

19 


20  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ism.  For  the  first  time  in  their  history,  the  EngUsh 
are  thinking  in  terms  of  a  state — "  a  modern  state, 
in  all  its  complexity,  with  scientific  laws  and  regula- 
tions." This  is  a  view  "  utterly  strange  to  English 
thought,  steeped  as  it  always  had  been  in  empiricism, 
and  only  inclined  to  such  piecemeal  legislation  as  a 
particular  grievance  or  a  particular  occasion  might 
demand."  I  am  quoting  a  government  investigator. 
These  tendencies  were  already  in  operation  before  the 
war  ;  but  what  might  have  required  twenty-five  years 
to  bring  to  a  head,  the  war  has  accelerated,  intensified, 
and  even  altered. 

It  is  a  misreading  of  English  character  to  think 
that  an5^hing  remotely  resembling  the  state  socialism 
of  Germany,  the  card-indexing  of  the  community 
for  vocational  training,  the  regimenting  of  the  intel- 
lectual life  into  a  body  of  state-controlled  professors, 
will  result  from  the  present  English  revolution.  The 
social  change  in  England  is  not  coming  with  any  such 
over-emphasized  nationalism.  The  Englishman  wants 
to  be  let  alone  for  all  his  personal  choices.  He  wants 
to  disagree  with  official  statements.  He  will  not  be 
coerced  even  for  "  his  good,"  as  that  good  is  seen  by 
another.  Nor  will  the  change  come  as  an  indeter- 
minate, spreading  internationalism,  such  as  has 
infected  radical  thought  for  half  a  century.  It  will  be 
English,  inside  an  English  environment. 

There  are  two  truths  so  plain  that  we  wonder  it 
required  a  hundred  years  to  find  them  out.  It  is 
the  war  that  has  finally  revealed  them  to  our  blind 
eyes.    The  first  truth  is  that  high  wages  give  high 


LABOUR  21 

productiveness.  A  well-fed,  self-respecting,  healthy 
workman  can  do  more  work  than  an  under-nourished, 
servile  workman.  If  the  employer  wants  a  good  pro- 
duct and  plenty  of  it,  he  must  pay  a  living  wage.  The 
second  truth  is  that  workmen  must  work  efficiently 
if  they  wish  high  wages.  If  they  cut  down  productive- 
ness there  is  no  money  to  pay  them.  The  war  has 
smoked  the  workers  out.  Their  sacred  secret  processes 
which  required  hours  to  work  have  turned  out  as 
simple  as  building-blocks.  It  is  public  knowledge 
now,  the  time  it  takes  to  do  a  piece  of  factory  work. 
For  years  the  worker  has  been  limiting  his  output. 
A  manufacturer  of  marine  engines  states  that  where 
thirteen  rivets  were  turned  out  before  the  war,  seventy 
are  now  being  made  by  the  same  number  of  workers. 
The  worker  is  making  the  Same  fight  here  that  he 
made  when  he  broke  the  first  machines.  The  machines 
were  robbing  him  of  his  living,  he  thought.  Instead  of 
that,  they  have  given  more  men  a  better  living.  Of 
late  years  the  worker  has  been  fighting  his  own 
productivity.  How  is  shrinking  wealth  to  give  him  an 
expanding  wage  ?  Where  is  the  money  to  come  from  ? 
As  a  method  in  a  given  emergency,  sabotage  and 
limitation  of  output  are  effective  ;  but  as  a  nation- 
wide policy  they  are  instruments  that  cut  the  hands 
of  the  user.  The  trade-unions  surrender  their  hard- 
won  regulations,  and  suddenly  production  leaps  up 
as  if  it  had  been  released  from  a  dead- weight.  They 
are  still  insisting  on  government  guarantees  that 
the  old  restrictions  will  be  handed  back  to  them  after 
the  war.    It  would  be  flattering  to  write  that  it  is  by 


22  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

labour  that  the  constructive  thinking  is  being  done, 
but  it  would  be  untrue.  There  is  with  workers  as 
with  management,  absence  of  patient  thought,  lack 
of  a  constructive  programme,  the  muddle  of  a  helpless 
creature  caught  unawares  in  a  tidal  wave. 

It  was  the  making  of  shells  that  taught  England 
the  new  synthesis  of  capital  and  labour.  Suddenly 
she  was  forced  to  turn  out  huge  quantities  of  a  pro- 
duct in  order  to  save  the  lives  of  her  people.  Under 
that  tragic  pressure  she  had  to  learn  overnight  how 
to  get  a  large  product.  She  began  in  the  manner  dear 
to  ruling  classes  :  she  started  an  old-time  "  personal- 
morality  "  campaign  of  the  evangelistic  sort,  and  her 
most  gifted  exhorter,  Lloyd  George,  went  out  to 
down  drink.  She  then  preached  thrift  to  the  factory- 
worker.  But  she  soon  dropped  that  way  of  getting 
at  it ;  she  stopped  lecturing  the  labouring-man  for 
his  bad  habits. 
And  swiftly  she  found  the  solution.  It  is  this  : 
State  ownership  of  some  factories ;  state  control 
of  many  factories  ;  state  oversight  of  an  ever-increasing 
number  of  factories ;  a  conscription  of  abnormal 
profits  for  the  community ;  a  living  wage  ;  decent 
working  conditions ;  limited  hours  of  labour ;  no 
restriction  of  output ;  no  sabotage  ;  no  discrimination 
by  workers  against  workers,  but  all  to  be  employed, 
union  and  non-union,  male  and  female  ;  efficiency  ; 
the  use  of  machinery  up  to  its  capacity  instead  of 
dribbling  a  process  through  a  day  where  a  half- 
day  of  proper  handling  would  have  completed  the 
product. 


LABOUR  23 

There  are  broken  planks  all  along  the  length  of  this 
platform.  But  every  sag  has  meant  decreased  out- 
put, a  longer  war,  more  young  men  killed  in  battle. 
And  once  England  had  settled  the  main  question 
with  a  measure  of  honesty,  she  found  that  some  other 
things  were  added  unto  her.  When  she  paid  a  living 
wage  to  people  who  had  never  had  it  before,  and  put 
before  them  a  national  ideal  instead  of  a  benefit  for 
another  class,  she  found  that  four  million  persons 
joined  her  national  savings  fund,  thereby  breaking  an 
immemorial  British  habit.  She  found  that  her  prisons 
had  fewer  inmates,  that  the  personal  morality  of  her 
inhabitants  was  in  the  main  improved.  She  found 
that  her  school  children  in  factory  communities  were 
better  nourished  than  they  had  been  in  the  memory  of 
the  examining  physicians.  She  found  that  her  woman 
question  solved  itself.  The  very  suffragette  leaders, 
such  as  Mrs.  Drummond  and  Mrs.  Pankhurst,  who 
had  put  grey  hairs  on  Lloyd  George's  head  and  lines 
of  worry  into  his  face,  recruited  soldiers,  explained  the 
national  need  to  the  men  miners  of  the  north  counties, 
assisted  in  organizing  masses  of  "  unemployable " 
women  into  industrial  workers,  and  were  welcomed 
by  Lloyd  George  and  the  Government  as  efficient 
helpers  in  unifying  the  nation.  And,  far  more  import- 
ant than  the  co-operation  of  a  handful  of  leaders,  the 
unrest  and  discontent  of  large  numbers  of  women 
became  transformed  into  energy. 

There  has  been  an  increase  of  a  million  women, 
in  industries,  Government  establishments,  transport, 
finance  and  banking,  commerce,  professions,  hotels 


24  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

(and  theatres,  cinemas,  public-houses),  civil  service 
and  local  government.  Many  have  transferred  their 
activity  from  domestic  service  and  parasitic  trades 
into  the  main  channels  of  industry.  The  Bond  Street 
milHner  has  become  a  Stepney  machinist.  In  muni- 
tions alone  six  hundred  thousand  women  have  stepped 
over  from  unregulated  hours  and  low  wages  to  sharply 
defined  hours  and  comparatively  high  wages.  These 
women,  and  several  hundred  thousand  others  in  factory 
processes,  in  railway,  tram-car,  and  omnibus  work, 
and  in  business  superintendence,  have  "  tasted  blood." 
By  that  I  mean  they  have  won  an  increased  freedom 
and  independence,  however  imperfect  even  yet,  and  a 
higher  wage.  To  send  them  "  home  "  will  prove  a 
task  larger  than  the  paper  resolutions  of  any  men's 
trade-union  to  the  effect  that  women  workers  must 
give  up  their  jobs. 

It  is  one  more  of  time's  ironic  revenges  that  it  is 
the  entrance  of  women  upon  the  scene  which  has 
precipitated  social  questions  to  solution,  where  before 
they  were  seething  in  separate,  repellent  elements. 
Woman's  long  campaign  for  the  vote  supplied  the 
needed  intellectual  criticism  of  plural  voting  and  of 
suffrage  restricted  to  a  property  qualification.  "  Man- 
hood "  suffrage  will  be  granted.  It  is  not  possible 
for  a  nation  to  deny  a  vote  to  men  who  have  been  ready 
to  die  for  that  nation.  This  manhood  suffrage  will 
include  votes  for  women,  for  the  women  have  mobilized 
with  an  equal  loyalty. 

Woman's  irritating  presence  in  industry  has  empha- 
sized the  demand  for  proper  working  conditions.    It 


LABOUR  25 

has  sharpened  the  wage  controversy,  and  it  has 
revealed  the  need  of  far-reaching  measures  to  deal  with 
the  unemployment  situation  that  the  nation  will  face 
on  the  day  of  peace.  Women  are  not  going  to  enter 
industry.  They  have  already  entered  it,  and  a  million 
fresh  workers  have  been  added.  It  is  clear  that 
increasing  the  number  of  workers  does  not  lessen  the 
problem  of  a  living  wage.  There  is  only  one  answer 
to  the  violently  acute  situation  which  has  been  forced 
by  these  women,  and  which  will  come  to  a  crisis  when 
five  million  men  hang  their  khaki  in  the  cupboard.  The 
areas  of  production  must  be  widened  not  tenderly 
and  with  the  imperceptible  gradualness  of  a  natural 
process,  but  swiftly. 

(i)  The  land  ^  must  support  more  people  in  independ- 
ence and  comfort.  Co-operation  in  produce  and 
marketing  must  be  practised  among  the  peasant 
tenants. .  Ireland  has  blazed  the  way  here. 

(2)  The  state  must  institute  fields  of  activity  at 
home,  helping  to  establish  new  industries,  such  as 
dye- works. 2  It  must  make  use  of  an  immense  amount 
of  new  automatic  machinery,^  installed  to  make 
shells,  and  adapted  to  an  expansion  of  general  engineer- 
ing work  and  to  the  creation  of  new  industries.  The 
head  of  a  motor-car  company  told  me  that  two-thirds 
of  his  present  machinery  has  been  created  since  the 
war.  The  report  of  the  British  Association  states, 
"  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  west  of  Scot- 

1  See  Appendix,  "  Land." 

«  See  Appendix,  "  Machinery." 

» See  Appendix,  "  Industry  and  tlie  State." 


26  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

land  engineering  shops  had  been  filled  with  modern 
machine  tools/'  This  enormous  investment  cannot 
be  scrapped. 

(3)  The  state  must  greatly  extend  its  sphere  of 
activities  throughout  the  empire  in  cattle-raising,  in 
developing  raw  lands,  in  producing  commodities 
from  the  land.^ 

These  methods  will  be  used  to  meet  the  unemploy- 
ment situation  by  furnishing  new  jobs,  and  to  meet  the 
burden  of  increased  taxation  by  giving  an  increased 
income.  The  larger  programme  ,will  of  course  be 
postponed  till  its  advocates  are  more  numerous  and 
better  organized.    Such  a  programme  will  include  : 

(i)  An  extension  of  transportation  facilities,  the 
construction  of  light  railways,  a  greatly  enlarged  use 
of  waterways,  the  building  of  new  and  better  roads. ^ 

(2)  Improved  housing.^  The  foul  slums  of  great 
cities  and  towns,  the  vile  homes  of  agricultural  labourers 
will  have  to  be  razed  by  as  drastic  a  plan  as  that  by 
which  Haussmann  drew  his  blue  pencil  down  through 
the  jungle  of  Paris.  New  dwellings  in  the  place  of  the 
"  lung  blocks  "  must  be  built. 

(3)  Afforestation.  If  it  proves  true  that  there  are 
several  milHon  acres  in  the  British  Isles  that  are  unfit 
for  intensive  agriculture,  this  area  affords  an  oppor- 
tunity for  forest  development,  which  in  eighty  years 
would  offer  rich  returns  to  the  state. 

Under  such  an  extension  of  enterprise  there  would 

^  See  Appendix,  "  Empire  Resources." 
"  See  Appendix,  "  Light  Railways." 
*  See  Appendix,  "  Housing.'* 


LABOUR  27 

be  plenty  of  work  after  the  war,  and  therefore  plenty 
of  jobs.  The  problem  is  how  to  obtain  the  money 
with  which  to  finance  the  work.  The  war  has  shown 
how  to  get  the  money.  The  taxation  of  profits,  death 
duties,  and  the  taxation  of  incomes  have  availed,  with 
new  areas  of  production,  to  give  a  more  widespread, 
better-distributed  prosperity  to  England  than  she 
enjoyed  before  the  war.  It  is  the  line  of  solution  that 
will  be  enforced  after  the  war.^  The  exact  pressure 
that  will  enforce  it  is  the  demand  for  a  continuation 
of  the  present  high  wages. 

This  programme  is  being  postponed  as  long  as 
possible.  Its  items  wilF  be  applied  unevenly,  and 
parts  will  go  neglected.  Committees  of  Parliament 
are  sure  to  bring  in  ingenious  little  outlines  for  legisla- 
tion, which  will  affect  a  few  thousand  workers,  while 
the  army  will  demobilize  at  the  rate  of  a  few  thousand 
a  day.  But  for  every  failure  in  boldness  and  energy, 
for  every  lag  in  execution,  the  nation  will  pay  in 
decreased  exports,  falling  wages,  the  pressure  of 
taxation,  and  a  wrangle  between  masters  and  men. 
The  new  order  of  life  is  still  badly  delayed  at  many 
points.  The  lot  of  the  agricultural  laboiirer  is  miser- 
able. The  **  East  Ends  "  of  the  industrial  cities  remain 
sodden.  ^  An  immense  number  of  workers  are  being 
underpaid,  for  the  rise  in  wages  has  reached  only  a 
fraction.  A  ministry  of  commerce  and  a  ministry  of 
health  are  needed  at  once,  and  in  the  ministry  of  labour 
there  should  be  a  permanent  department  for  women's 
work,  conducted  by  women  under-secretaries. 

*See  Appendix,  "  Compulsory  Democracy." 


28  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Wages  and  hours  remain  the  heart  of  the  social 
movement.  The  emphasis  will  not  shift  from  wages 
and  hours.  But  a  new  demand  has  been  added 
to  these  *'  old-timers."  It  is  the  demand  by  labour 
for  a  voice  in  the  control  of  its  working  conditions. 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  responded  to  this  demand  by  greatly 
increasing  the  scope  of  welfare  work  in  factories. 
Through  the  famous  manufacturer  and  social  worker, 
Seebohm  Rowntree,^  he  put  protective  agencies  at 
work  in  munition  factories  which  affect  the  lives  of 
half  a  million  persons  who  were  not  safeguarded  to 
the  same  extent  formerly.  This  safeguarding  is  done 
by  welfare  secretaries,  v/hose  duty  it  is  to  study  the 
health,  home  conditions,  and  sanitary  appliances  of 
women.  Grievances  of  workers  are  laid  before  these 
secretaries.  Welfare  secretaries  are  not  a  new  arrival 
in  British  industry,  but  there  were  few  of  them  in 
relation  to  the  immense  numbers  of  factories  and 
workers.  This  movement  toward  conducting  industry 
in  its  social  relationship  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
worker  is  in  its  beginning.  Labour  will  press  on 
for  an  increasing  recognition  of  its  right  to  be  heard 
in  management  in  workshop  adjustments,  the  speed 
of  machinery,  rest-times,  hours  of  work,  details  of 
discipline,  and  the  grading  of  labour. 

As  this  tide  of  reform  rises  higher,  there  is  a  back 
wash.  Class  education,  land  monopoly,  a  state  church, 
persist  down  to  our  own  day.  England  has  continued 
in  a  modified,  far  less  harsh  form  those  special  privi- 

1  Mr.  Rowntree  has  lately  gone  over  to  the  Reconstruction  Com- 
mittee. 


LABOUR  29 

leges  of  a  ruling  class  that  in  France  led  to  the  over- 
throw of  the  nobility  and  the  clergy.  The  industrial 
revolution  of  a  century  ago  suddenly  altered  the 
texture  of  feudal  English  life,  just  as  it  would  have 
altered  France  without  the  French  Revolution.  It 
added  a  new  upper  layer  to  the  pressure  from  over- 
head on  the  manual  worker  in  agriculture  and  industry, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  gave  an  ever-increasing  popula- 
tion a  share  in  the  means  of  production.  But  the 
coming  of  machinery,  creating  a  new  world,  was  power- 
less in  England  to  disturb  the  big  land  holdings,  the 
church,  and  restricted  education.  They  have  con- 
tinued to  govern  the  conditions  of  life.  The  best 
defence  of  the  class  system  which  I  have  recently  seen 
is  that  given  in  lectures  to  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania by  Geoffrey  Butler  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Tory  Tradition."  He  clearly  shows  the  contribution 
which  has  been  made  by  the  Tory  rejection  of  a 
utilitarian  standard,  their  distrust  of  sectional  control, 
their  insistence  on  the  organic  conception  of  the 
state,  their  belief  in  the  power  of  tradition  and  the 
ancient  processes  of  government,  their  emphasis  on 
national  duties,  and  therefore  on  a  far-sighted  foreign 
policy.  He  says,  "  Our  system  of  classes  represents 
the  effect  of  selection  by  the  capacity  to  govern." 
And  again,  "  Heredity  is  no  Tory  invention,  but  a 
scientific  fact." 

In  any  analysis  of  unseemly  class  preponderance 
the  honest  student  of  English  conditions  has  to  qualify 
the  downright  statement.  Thus  the  landed  gentry 
have  often  exercised  a  personal  care  for  their  tenants 


30  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  the  village  community  that  the  modern  liberal 
captain  of  industry  has  sometimes  neglected  to  exer- 
cise toward  his  employees.  But  the  land  monopoly 
has  prevented  England  from  being  self-supporting 
and  from  relieving  the  pressure  on  industry  of  an 
over-crowded  labour  supply.  It  has  robbed  her  of  a 
sturdy  land-owning  peasantry  like  the  French,  and 
has  given- her  in  their  place  a  city-bred,  under-sized, 
intellectually  feeble,  morally  infirm  lower  class. 

The  intellectuals  of  the  public  schools  and  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  have  suppHed  a  poise  and  dignity  to 
modem  life  that  a  mediocre  democracy  lacks.  Their 
graduates  have  given  honest  leadership  in  the  Govern- 
ment. Recently  their  young  men  have  gone  gallantly 
to  a  service  from  which  there  is  no  returning.  But 
much  of  the  defence  for  the  rigid,  mediaeval  class 
system,  in  so  far  as  it  possesses  an  intellectual  basis, 
has  been  supplied  by  public  school  and  university  men. 
There  is,  however,  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
best  of  them  will  ally  themselves  to  the  democratic 
movement.  The  Workers'  Educational  Association 
offers  promise  of  the  most  hopeful  alHance  in  any 
nation  between  manual  workers  and  "  intellectuals." 

The  belated  Tory  Church  of  England  clergy  have 
continued  to  be  an  ameliorating  influence  in  their 
communities.  Their  sane  manner  of  living,  their 
personal  kindliness,  their  patient  absorption  in  the 
humble  lives  about  them — all  these  make  a  contribu- 
tion we  overlook  in  our  easy  generalizations  on  the 
decayed  church.  And  there  are  abounding  elements 
inside  the  established  church  itself  that  are  as  liberal 


LABOUR  31 

as  any  elements  in  modern  life.  That  church  still  has 
wise  leaders,  like  Dean  Welldon  of  Manchester  and  a 
dozen  others.  The  sacramental  view  of  life  has  pro- 
found and  permanent  values  for  certain  persons. 
But  when  all  has  been  said,  it  remains  true  that  the 
church,  with  its  compromised  theology,  its  indifference 
to  social  injustice,  its  ignorance  of  where  the  modern 
fight  for  righteousness  is  being  waged,  its  land-holding, 
its  taxation,  its  absence  of  intellectual  force  in  seeking 
truth,  has  acted  as  a  deterrent  in  the  emancipation  of 
the  masses.  A  state  religion  has  been  a  soporific, 
drugging  the  labourer  to  believe  that  his  lot  in  life  was 
a  part  of  the  scheme  of  things.  As  an  institution 
the  church,  and  as  a  body  the  clergy,  have  not  sought 
equality  for  their  communities.  The  National  Mis- 
sion of  Repentance  and  Hope,  the  most  ambitious 
crusade  the  church  has  launched  in  many  years,  was 
swung  over  into  an  evangeHstic  campaign  against  the 
personal  vices  of  drink  and  sexual  indulgence,  and 
into  an  old-fashioned  appeal  for  personal  righteous- 
ness and  the  deepening  of  the  religious  life.  The 
majority  of  the  bishops  remain  blind  to  the  demand  of 
the  workers  for  an  economic  underpinning  to  their 
lives.  The  workers  believe  that  the  way  to  a  proper 
life  is  by  taking  a  hand  in  the  control  of  industry,  by 
a  living  wage,  and  by  fewer  hours  of  work.  They  are 
frankly  uninterested  in  the  restriction  of  public-houses 
and  a  more  diligent  attendance  in  places  of  worship 
till  they  see  that  their  larder  and  their  leisure  are 
guaranteed.^ 

*  See  Appendix,  "  Church  Attendance.** 


32  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

These,  then,  are  the  forces  of  reaction  tightening 
themselves  for  the  struggle.  The  landed  gentry,  some 
of  the  clergy,  and  son\e  of  the  public  school  and 
university  men  will  die  hard  in  defence  of  the  class 
system.  They  will  be  powerfully  supported  by  the 
individualistic  capitalist,  avid  for  his  profits,  and  by 
the  timid,  unintelligent  middle  class,  fearful  of  its 
narrow  income  from  rents,  stock-holding,  and  small 
investment. 

But  the  same  quick  action  that  turned  out  shells 
by  the  acre  will  be  enforced  by  the  return  of  a  nation 
in  arms.  It  is  not  that  they  will  use  the  rifle  to  shoot. 
It  is  that  their  strength  has  been  compacted  where 
their  eye  can  see  it,  their  organization  ready-made 
for  them,  their  service  to  the  nation  acknowledged. 
Soldiers  and  workers  are  the  same  men,  inside  the  small 
area  of  an  island.  At  one  stroke  war  won  those  things 
for  which  in  peace  a  portion  of  the  EngHsh  people 
seek  in  vain  :  proper  food,  correct  conditions  for  effi- 
ciency, a  pension  for  dependants,  high  honour  for 
service,  a  common  sacrifice,  and,  embracing  all  like 
a  climate,  a  favouring  public  opinion,  a  great  universal 
equality.  They  will  demand  that  the  same  humanity 
be  let  loose  into  their  daily  life  of  the  factories.  Is 
the  basic  work  of  peace  less  worthy  than  trench 
routine  ? 

There  has  been  a  certain  vital  force  in  new  countries 
that  England  has  lacked  in  recent  years.  Some  of 
that  living  element  went  out  to  America  and  the 
colonies.  It  founded  free  institutions,  established  a 
wider  equality,  liberated  a  play  for  individual  initiative. 


K 


LABOUR  33 

It  left  England  greyer  and  heavier  than  in  its  great 
epochs. 

Observers  of  England  have  written  down  this 
slackening  of  effort  as  laziness.  But  "  laziness " 
and  "  drink  "  and  ''  thriftlessness  "  are  the  invariable 
resort  of  an  imperfect  analysis.  WhaX  was  the  cause 
of  that  laziness  ?  I  believe  that  we  have  the  answer 
in  the  weakness  that  sets  in  when  an  organism  gets 
out  of  touch  with  its  environment .  ^  All  the  conditions 
of  modern  life  were  changing  rapidly,  and  England 
revealed  little  adaptability  in  fitting  herself  to  the 
change.  What  the  war  has  made  clear  is  that  England 
was  losing  her  stride  in  the  modern  world.  She  was 
lagging  in  agriculture,  industry,  and  applied  science. 
To  put  the  matter  clearly  and  frankly,  an  anaemia  had 
spread  over  English  life  in  recent  generations.  Through 
lack  of  vocational  training,  the  working-man  had  lost 
ambition,  and  his  power  of  production  had  lost  pace 
with  that  of  German  and  American  workers.  The 
huddled,  sheltered,  unproductive  lives  of  middk-class 
people  were  often  without  direction  and  purpose 
because  they  were  untrained.  The  upper  class  had 
lost  power  of  constructive  leadership  in  the  traditions 
of  an  education  unrelated  to  the  realities  of  modern 
life. 

Before  the  war,  England  had  begun  to  waken. 
The  social  movement  was  under  way.  There  has  been 
a  tendency  in  "  war  writing "  to  exaggerate  the 
transformation  by  limiting  it  to  the  last  three  years. 
But,  actually,  the  change  had  been  visible  for  some 

1  See  Appendix,  "  Who  Does  the  Work.'* 

c 


34  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

years.  Nevertheless,  the  war  has  accelerated  the 
change.  It  has  made  the  working-man  work  at  full- 
tilt  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  He  has  been  willing 
to  do  it,  because  the  product  served  a  national  purpose 
instead  of  the  profit  of  another  person.  He  has  been 
physically  able  to  do  it,  because  an  increased  wage 
gave  him  better  food.  He  has  discovered  how  to  do 
it,  because  the  pressure  of  necessity  has  unlocked 
brain  cells  which  in  ordinary  times  would  have  required 
a  term  of  education  to  co-ordinate.  The  war  has 
continued  and  extended  the  experiment  of  turning 
the  middle-class  home  inside  out,  and  freeing  the 
respectable  unemployed  into  usefulness.  It  has  given 
new  and  more  active  forms  of  employment  to  women 
caught  in  domestic  service  and  the  parasitic  trades 
of  "  refined "  dress-making,  millinery,  and  candy 
manufacture.  Finally,  the  war  has  given  a  career  to 
certain  upper-class  Englishmen.  For  the  first  time 
in  their  lives  they  feel  they  have  found  something 
active  to  do  through  noble  sacrifice.  The  sigh  of 
relief  that  went  up  at  the  discovery  that  life  was  at 
last  worth  living,  if  only  because  of  its  brevity,  was 
echoed  in  the  poetry  of  officers  as  it  drifted  back  from 
the  trenches. 

The  key  to  the  present  situation  is  the  release  of 
energy  which  has  taken  place  in  recent  years.  Male 
labour  has  felt  it,  and  has  responded  with  increased 
production.  Women  have  felt  it,  and  have  transferred 
their  activities  from  low-pressure  drudgery  and  para- 
sitic employments  to  the  main  channels  of  industry. 
The  directors  and  capitalists  have  felt  it,  and  have 


LABOUR  35 

sanctioned  new  areas  of  production,  new  automatic 
machinery,  and  more  liberal  terms  for  their  workers. 
The  state  has  felt  it,  and  has  taken  a  direct  hand  in  the 
encouragement  and  control  of  industry.  Energy  has 
been  let  loose  in  England  which  in  "  Victorian  days  " 
was  lying  latent  in  underpaid,  undernourished  working 
men,  in  individualistic  business  men,  in  unimaginative 
government  officials,  in  extra  daughters  in  the  house- 
hold, and  in  unattached  women  of  a  moderate  income 
and  no  profession. 

To  maintain  this  increased  activity  after  the  war 
will  require  an  enlarged  system  of  state  education. 
Vocational  training  must  be  given  to  the  young  in 
place  of  the  present  laissez-faire  policy,  which  lets 
children  slip  out  from  control,  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
and  even  younger,  into  "  blind-alley  "  pursuits.  Eng- 
land will  have  to  be  remodelled  or  else  lose  her  place 
among  the  nations.- 

If  she  fails  to  take  action  in  accelerating  industrial 
democracy,  she  will  see  her  surviving  young  men 
sailing  in  droves  for  Canada  and  Australia.  The 
colonies  are  far-sighted,  and  their  propaganda  in  Eng- 
land is  continuous,  and  has  greatly  increased  since. the 
beginning  of  the  war.  Show-windows  on  the  Strand 
and  King's  Road,  and  like  strategic  points  of  great 
cities,  are  filled  with  the  genial  products  of  the  soil  and 
the  mines, — ears  of  grain  and  slags  of  metal, — and 
the  background  a  gay  painting  of  an  overseas  city, 
with  its  hospitable  harbour.  Pleasant  voiced  and 
energetic  gentlemen  inside  the  roomy,  prosperous 
offices  tell  you  what  you  can  make  of  your  hfe  if  you 


36  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

pull  up  stakes  and  come  with  them  to  the  new  lands. 
If  England  fails,  she  will  be  stripped  of  men,  and 
will  become  a  feminist  nation.  But  she  will  not  fail. 
The  penalty  is  too  severe. 

It  would  be  easy  to  play  the  r61e  of  a  prophet 
here,  and  ride  a  radical  gallop  through  the  coming 
England.  But  I  have  consistently  limited  this  out- 
line to  the  tendencies  already  under  way,  to  the  currents 
already  running.  I  have  struck  out  the  minimum  of 
social  remodelling,  as  recognized  by  middle-of-the-way 
pubHcists.i  I  can  quote  the  "  Saturday  Review  " 
on  a  minimum  v/age  for  agricultural  labour,  the 
"  Times "  on  the  idea  of  national  syndication,  the 
Government  on  the  "  pigsty  *'  in  which  the  farm- 
labourer  has  been  forced  to  live,  and  Mr.  Asquith  on 
woman's  claim  to  a  vote  on  the  basis  of  her  war  work. 

To  suppose  that  these  changes  are  going  through 
gracefully  is  to  dream  in  the  daylight.  They  are 
coming  jerkily,  unevenly.  Nothing  will  be  granted 
except  as  it  is  forced.  I  have  heard  talk  by  persons 
in  well-to-do  homes  about  the  new  brotherhood  of 
the  trenches.  One  of  the  most  distinguished  English 
writers  said  to  me  : 

"  Do  you  think  working-men  will  ever  feel  bitterly 
again,  now  that  they  have  seen  their  officers  leading 
them  and  dying  for  them  ?  " 

It  did  not  occur  to  her  to  inquire  how  gallantry 

in  an  infantry  charge  would  prove  a  substitute  for  a 

living  wage.    There  will  be  brotherhood  after  the 

war  if  the  privileged  classes  pay  a  living  wage  ;   but 

*  See  Appendix,  "  I  see  by  the  Papers.'*^ 


LABOUR  .  37 

from  what  some  of  their  representatives  have  said  to 
me  I  gather  that  brotherhood  is  to  be  practised  by  the 
workers  in  ceasing  to  agitate  for  the  basic  conditions 
of  a  decent  life. 

Not  much  of  this  emancipation  is  being  made 
in  love.  It  has  largely  come  by  the  clever  use  of  force, 
and  what  it  brings  will  be  like  the  gains  of  war  for 
territory — areas  soaked  with  human  tears,  breeding- 
places  of  fresh  dissension.  The  eternal  questions 
will  beat  in  again  after  the  new  order  is  established. 
Is  a  living  wage  the  final  answer  to  the  homesickness 
of  the  human  spirit  ?  Does  a  materialistic  conception 
of  life  satisfy  the  longing  of  the  heart  ?  Are  the 
claims  of  beauty  met  by  uniform  rows  of  neat  little 
dwellings  and  by  sanitary  factories  ?  Have  we  really 
crossed  the  great  divide  and  arrived  finally  in  the  sun- 
shine ?  One  doubts  it.  The  life  of  the  spirit  is  not 
so  easily  satisfied.  But  as  in  the  present  war  of  arms 
political  differences  are  buried,  art  and  poetry  forgotten, 
and  all  the  national  will  focussed  on  this  one  thing 
to  do,  so  in  this  greater  struggle  the  vast  complexities 
of  life  are  overlooked  for  the  sake  of  a  working 
programme  of  action  and  a  sharp  summary.  Hap- 
piness and  morality,  beauty  and  religion,  are  left  to 
take  care  of  themselves. 

It  is  not  from  brotherly  love  that  an  increased 
co-operation  between  the  directors  and  the  workers 
is  being  established,  but  because  without  co-operation 
the  production  of  wealth  is  lessened,  capital  is  dimin- 
ished, and  wages  are  decreased.  That  co-operation 
is  not  secured  by  telHng  the  labourer  to  **  be  good," 


38  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

to  remember  the  nation,  and  to  forget  his  wage.  The 
capitaUst  of  the  past  has  been  indifferent  to  the  welfare 
of  his  workers.  He  has  had  his  mind  on  individual 
profit,  not  on  national  wealth.  If  he  acts  in  the  future 
as  he  has  done  in  the  past,  extracting  an  immediate 
high,  profit  at  the  expense  of  the  worker,  and  therefore 
of  the  national  wealth,  the  control  will  be  taken 
from  him,  and  will  pass  over  automatically  into  the 
hands  of  the  democracy.  It  rests  with  the  capitalists 
themselves  whether  they  and  their  system  will  survive 
or  whether  their  function  will  be  taken  over  by  the 
industrial  group  and  the  state.  Capital  and  labour 
are  a  permanent  institution  ;  but  the  capitalist,  unlike 
the  labourer,  is  by  no  means  an  indispensable  unit 
in  the  institution.  If  the  capitalist  will  handle  himself 
in  relation  to  his  employees  as  the  French  officer  does 
in  relation  to  his  men,  he  can  postpone  his  extinction 
indefinitely.  If  he  develops  a  democracy  of  spirit 
and  attitude,  taking  less  profits  and  paying  higher 
wages,  exercising  leadership  by  intelligence  and 
sympathy,  and  permitting  labour  a  voice  in  working 
conditions,  he  will  remain  in  partial  control  of  a 
diminished  realm  for  the  immediate  future  at  least. 
As  fast  as  he  fails  he  will  be  ousted. 

Discipline  and  responsibility  are  the  essentials 
for  the  new  life  just  beginning,  and  they  rest  with 
equal  weight  on  employer  and  employee.-^  They  are 
two  words  which  had  become  unpopular  in  our  recent 
philosophy  of  life,  because  the  qualities  themselves 
were  out  of  favour.  But  the  war  has  revealed  their 
ancient  worth  under  the  cake  of  modernism. 


LABOUR  39 

The  faults  of  the  Enghsh,  as  I  see  them,  are  an 
almost  incorrigible  mental  torpidness,  which  is  slow 
to  see  a  new  situation  and  obstinate  to  move  even 
when  seeing  it ;  a  deep-rooted  belief  in  the  class 
system  ;  an  unconscious  arrogance ;  and  a  suppres- 
sion of  the  emotional  life.  As  the  result  of  these 
limitations  in  insight  and  S5mipathy,  the  English  race 
has  been  backward  in  the  betterment  of  its  own 
people.  It  has  overworked  and  underpaid  its  own 
sons  and  daughters  till  a  portion  of  its  population  rots 
in  foul  slums. 

A  silent,  slow-moving,  but  determined  will,  a  con- 
stancy of  purpose,  a  loyalty  to  friend  and  cause,  a 
standard  of  conduct,  often  fallen  short  of,  but  rather 
consistently  aimed  at,  are,  I  think,  the  saving  character- 
istics of  EngHsh  character.  By  reason  of  these  virtues, 
— and  they  are  supreme  virtues, — ^when  the  English 
race  starts  to  right  a  wrong,  it  goes  through  with  the 
work  to  the  end.  It  has  now  set  itself  to  give  justice 
to  its  workers.  The  social  movement  is  more  surely 
on  its  way  in  England  than  in  any  other  country  of 
Europe. 

Human  history  has  moved  in  cycles,  and  war  has 
often  marked  the  cesura.  The  French  Revolution, 
the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  the  invention  of  machinery 
altered  the  face  of  the  world  and  refashioned  its  inner 
life.  Men  are  to-day  in  the  presence  of  an  industrial 
revolution  as  vast  as  that  of  a  century  ago.  We  in 
America  shall  be  wise  if  we,  like  England,  practise 
preparedness  not  only  in  the  obvious  surface  require- 
ments of  dreadnoughts  and  citizen  armies,  but  in  the 


40  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

profound  modifications  of  the  social  structure  and 
consciousness. 

"  Workers'  Control  " 

Any  one  who  looks  forward  to  a  peace  on  earth 
following  the  war  of  the  trenches  is  going  to  be  present 
at  a  surprise-party.  The  workers  are  gathering  them- 
selves for  a  mighty  effort  which  will  make  the  French 
railway  strike  and  the  English  mine  and  transport 
strikes  look  like  an  afternoon  tea.  The  issue  will  be 
precipitated  when  the  Government  and  the  employers 
fail  to  restore  the  old  trade-union  rules  and  regulations. 
They  cannot  restore  them  because  the  conditions  have 
changed  in  the  last  two  years.  New  automatic  machin- 
ery and  the  entrance  of  male  and  female  semi-skilled 
workers  have  made  it  impossible  to  restore  the  old 
system,  which  was  adapted  to  the  old  conditions.  Let 
me  quote  from  a  careful  investigation  made  by  experts  : 

Many  of  the  men  who  return  from  the  trenches 
to  the  great  munition  and  shipbuilding  centres  are, 
within  a  few  weeks  of  their  return,  among  those 
who  exhibit  most  actively  their  discontent  with 
present  conditions.  Among  those  who  have  fought 
in  Flanders  or  who  have  been  employed  in  making 
shells  at  home,  there  are  many  who  look  forward 
to  a  great  social  upheaval  following  the  war. 
It  is  the  testimony  of  responsible  observers  on  the 
spot  that  some  of  our  greatest  industrial  centres 
are  even  now  in  a  state  of  incipient  revolt.  To  a 
very  large  number  of  the  men  now  in  the  ranks, 
the  fight  against  Germany  is  a  fight  against 
*'  Prussianism,'*  and  the  spirit  of  Prussianism 
represents  to  them  only  an  extreme  example  of 


LABOUR  41 

that  to  which  they  object  in  the  industrial  and 
social  institutions  of  their  own  country.  They 
regard  the  present  struggle  as  closely  connected 
with  the  campaign  against  capitalist  and  class- 
domination  at  home. 

Unfortunately  some  of  the  results  of  the  war 
itself,  such  as  the'  Munitions  Acts  and  the  Com- 
pulsion Acts,  have  intensified  this  identification 
of  external  and  internal  "  enemies.''  We  are  not 
discussing  the  necessity  of  these  measures.  The 
point  is  that  the  working  of  these  Acts  and  the 
tribunals  created  under  them  has  given  rise  to  an 
amount  of  deep  and  widespread  resentment  which 
is  the  more  dangerous  because  it  is  largely  inarticu- 
late. It  is  particularly  dangerous  because  it  tends 
to  discredit  in  general  working  class  opinion  that 
section  of  labour  which  looks  to  the  improvement 
of  industrial  conditions  by  negotiation  or  by 
legislative  action,  and  to  strengthen  the  hands  of 
the  party  which  preaches  doctrines  of  wrecking 
and  appropriation. 

The  war  has  not  put  an  end  to  industrial  unrest. 
Every  one  of  the  old  causes  of  dispute  remains, 
and  others  of  a  more  serious  nature  have  been 
added  in  the  course  of  the  war.  The  very  modera- 
tion and  unselfishness  shown  by  the  responsible 
leaders,  of  organized  labour  are  looked  upon  by 
important  sections  of  their  following  as  a  betrayal 
of  the  cause  and  by  some  employers  as  a  tactical 
opportunity. 

What  is  the  answer  ?  No  half-way  solution,  no 
artificial  "  faked  "  restoration,  no  "  brotherhood  of 
the  trenches,"  no  turning  of  the  attention  of  labour 
to  "  higher  things  "  by  a  national  mission,  will  suffice 
to  meet  the  imperious  demands  of  five  million  men  who 


42  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

have  felt  the  rhjrthm  and  momentum  of  victorious 
organization.  There  is  only  one  answer  which  will 
avail.  That  answer  is  democratic  control.  It  can 
come  in  either  of  two  ways.  It  can  come  by  the  grace- 
ful concession  of  the  employing  class.  If  it  does  not 
come  in  that  way,  it  will  come  by  the  overwhelming 
force  exerted  by  general  limitation  of  output  and  by 
widespread  strikes.  And  if  these  prove  slow,  then 
there  is  the  possibility  of  what  a  Scotch  employer 
recently  declared.  He  said,  "As  I  look  into  the 
future,  I  see  nothing  but  bloodshed." 

There  is  no  need  of  bloodshed,  which  is.  a  crude 
and  unsatisfactory  way  of  determining  questions 
as  complex  as  the  division  of  profits,  the  limits  of 
fatigue,  the  conditions  of  production. 

Let  us  consider  the  principle  of  democratic  control 
in  detail.  It  is  sensible,  and  industrial  warfare  is 
senseless,  as  senseless  as  international  warfare.  What 
is  it  exactly  that  the  worker  wishes  ?  Shorter  hours 
and  higher  wages  ?  Yes.  Better  conditions  of  work- 
ing and  living  ?  Yes.  But  all  these  are  servants  of 
a  better  thing  yet — status.  Status  is  standing.  It 
is  that  position  which  a  person  or  a  class  holds  in 
society.  The  desire  for  status  is  the  desire  for  a  good 
life — a  life  raised  above  slavery  and  injustice,  and  free 
to  develop  its  creative  impulses.  No  one  of  intelli- 
gence wishes  labour  to  thrust  in  and  muddle  matters 
which  it  hasn't  the  executive  equipment  for  handling. 
At  its  present  stage  of  development  labour  cannot 
organize  the  market  and  sell  the  product.  It  cannot 
equip  the  factory  and  conduct  the   operating  and 


LABOUR  43 

selling  conditions.  Management  in  that  sense  is 
beyond  its  powers.  Education,  discipline,  expe- 
rience, the  creation  of  a  specialized  kind  of  brain 
power — all  are  necessary  to  organize  industry  and 
conduct  its  multiple  processes. 

But  what  labour  can  manage  and  possesses  the 
right  to  manage,  but  has  not  received  the  permission 
to  manage,  are  the  conditions  of  its  own  life — ^its 
working  life  and  its  leisure  life.  The  installation  of  new 
processes,  the  introduction  of  new  machinery,  the 
injection  of  new  workers — all  these  alterations  of  work- 
ing conditions  have  been  imposed  upon  the  workers, 
as  one  puts  a  new  harness  on  a  horse,  or  shifts  him  from 
the  plough  to  the  tread-mill.  The  workers  have  built 
up  their  own  system  of  protective  devices  to  meet 
these  impositions  of  the  oligarchy  in  control  of  them. 
They  have  limited  the  output  by  '*  going  gently '' 
with  the  work.  They  have  limited  the  number  of 
apprentices.  They  have  practised  sabotage  and 
called  strikes.  They  had  no  other  weapons.  The 
result  of  these  protective  devices  has  been  to  lessen 
the  volume  of  production,  to  give  capital  a  smaller 
return  on  its  investment,  and  to  cut  down  wages. 
The  policy  has  been  bad  for  employer  and  employee. 

It  is  not  altogether  the  control  which  capital  and 
management  exercise  over  the  mechanism  of  produc- 
tion which  creates  industrial  unrest.  It  is  in  part 
the  control  over  labour.  Absence  of  knowledge  is  the 
cause  of  some  of  the  misunderstanding.  The  workers 
understand  nothing  of  overhead  charges,  depreciation 
of  plant,  the  risks  of  capital.    They  know  nothing 


44  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

of  the  policy  connected  with  buying  and  selHng.  The 
employers  know  nothing  of  the  effect  of  a  new  process 
on  the  nervous  system  of  the  worker.  They  know 
nothing  of  the  fatigue  from  overwork  or  monotony. 
They  make  no  study  of  a  standard  of  living.  They  go 
blindly  ahead,  as  if  men  and  machinery  alike  were 
tools  to  be  manipulated.  That  an  aim  of  industry 
should  be  a  good  life  for  the  worker  is  an  idea  which 
would  sound  strangely  in  their  ears. 

What  is  needed  between  employer  and  worker  is  a 
pooling  of  knowledge,  a  frank  exchange  of  the  point 
of  view,  and  a  compromise  in  management.  The 
way  out  is  through  democratic  control  over  the  con- 
ditions of  work.  The  worker  must  be  consulted  when 
new  machinery  is  installed.  The  effect  of  it  must  be 
studied  in  relation  to  monotony,  fatigue,  and  danger. 
The  profits  from  its  introduction  must  be  equitably 
divided  between  the  employer  and  the  worker.  The 
consultation  must  not  be  a  form  of  words.  It  must  be 
a  consultation  where  the  voice  of  the  worker  is  of 
equal  authority  with  that  of  the  executive  manage- 
ment. The  worker  must  be  in  a  position  to  control 
the  conditions  of  his  putting  forth  of  labour  power. 
The  new  conditions,  created  by  the  new  machine  with 
its  special  processes,  must  be  such  that  the  balance  of 
justice,  established  under  the  old  conditions,  is  not 
disturbed  by  the  alteration.  The  belief  that  every 
change,  such  as  "  scientific  management,"  instituted 
by  the  employer,  has  enabled  him  to  pick  up  slack 
and  take  a  tighter  cinch-grip  on  labour,  has  led  labour 
to  resist  labour-saving  devices  and  modern  methods 


LABOUR  45 

of  speeding-up.  The  employer  has  been  partly 
defeated  whenever  he  has  played  a  *'  lone  hand." 
And  labour,  in  defeating  him,  has  lessened  the  volume 
of  production  from  which  higher  wages  are  derived.^ 

What  is  the  way  out  ?  Surely  it  is  this :  instal 
the  new  machinery,  establish  scientific  management, 
but  explain  the  process,  adjust  the  wage-scale,^  debate 
the  problems  of  fatigue,  monotony,  and  danger,  safe- 

*  Consider  the  analysis  Sir  Hugh  Bell  has  recently  made  of  his 
own  costs,  as  given  in  "  The  Round  Table  "  for  September,  1916. 

"  His  firm  makes  steel,  the  raw  materials  for  which  are  produced 
from  his  own  coal  and  iron  mines  and  limestone  quarries.  In  every 
ton  of  steel  made,  70  to  75  per  cent,  of  the  cost  goes  as  the  wages  of 
labour.  There  remains  25  to  30  per  cent,  for  all  other  outgoings, 
including  profit.  The  turnover  on  a  steel  business  in  this  country 
about  equals  the  capital  invested.  If  his  profit  amounts  to  10  per 
cent.,  of  which  3  per  cent,  at  least  must  go  back  into  the  business 
to  maintain  the  works,  he  thinks  himself  lucky,  and  the  7  per  cent, 
left  must  cover  interest  on  his  capital  as  well  as  the  profits  for  his 
enterprise  and  risk.  The  remaining  15  to  20  per  cent,  goes  to 
cover  rates  and  taxes,  railway  freights  and  so  forth,  part  of  which 
again  goes  to  labour. 

"  Out  of  what  fund,"  as  Sir  Hugh  Bell  asks,  "  is  he  to  pay  a  10 
per  cent,  increase  in  wages  ?  "  If  he  paid  10  per  cent,  more,  he 
would  have  no  profit  at  all  and  could  not  continue  the  business. 
The  increase  in  wages,  then,  can  only  come  from  within,  by  greater 
efficiency  in  management  or  greater  production  per  man.  There 
are,  no  doubt,  many  businesses  which  have  some  monopoly  valuer 
where  capital  secures  a  greater  return ;  there  are  others  wliere  the 
return  is  less  and  the  business  is  decaying.  But  except  when 
abnormal  conditions  arise,  as  with  shipping  now,  or  when  a  monopoly 
or  a  patent  exists,  the  picture  given  by  Sir  Hugh  Bell  is  more  or 
less  applicable  to  industry  in  general. 

No  paper  resolution,  no  legislation,  and  no  economic  theory  can 
alter  the  facts  of  the  industrial  situation,  but  an  adjustment  and  a 
gain  can  be  made  by  a  new  release  of  productive  energy  on  the 
part  of  the  management  and  the  men,  by  consultation  between 
labour  and  capital,  and  by  hard  intellectual  efl[ort  put  on  each  detail 
of  both  the  industrial  process  and  the  industrial  relationship. 

» See  Appendix,  "  Auditing  Wages  and  Profits/* 


46  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

guard  the  standard  of  living,  study  the  new  conditions, 
and  work  out  an  agreement  between  employer  and 
workers. 

Already  there  is  a  rapprochement  between  the 
larger  groups.  In  the  crisis  of  1915,  Mr.  Tennant 
summoned  the  labour  leaders  to  organize  the  forces  of 
labour.  The  employers  and  the  Government  were 
helpless  unless  aided  by  the  workers  themselves.  On 
that  day,  February  8,  19 15,  the  principle  of  democratic 
control  in  industry  was  established  in  the  modern 
state,  never  to  be  receded  from.  This  system  of  joint 
committees  had  indeed  long  existed  in  the  leading 
trades,  where  employers  and  union  leaders  met  to 
settle  disputes.  But  the  white  flag  of  truce  was  over 
the  conference,  while,  outside,  the  battle  raged.  But 
Mr.  Tennant  by  his  bold  measure  raised  the  joint 
committee  to  the  level  of  continuous  mediation  and 
consultation.  These  joint  boards  will  be  the  method 
by  which  the  Government,  the  employer,  and  the 
worker  will  discuss  the  breakdown  during  war-time 
of  the  trade-union  rules,  and  the  substitute  to  be 
given  in  place  of  an  impossible  restoration.  The 
joint  board  is  part  of  the  machinery  for  reconstruction. 
The  acceptance  of  it  is  an  acceptance  of  the  principle 
of  democratic  control. 

That  is  the  centralized  and  "parliamentary"  side 
of  the  matter.  But  it  deals  with  only  half  the  problem. 
The  other  half  is  local  government  in  the  individual 
factory.  No  system  of  centralization  can  ever  so 
extend  itself  as  to  deal  adequately  with  the  dehcate 
various  human  material  in  the  single  factory.    And 


LABOUR  47 

for  this  a  solution  has  been  struck  out.  It  is  that  of 
workshop  councils,  where  the  men  sit  in  equal  power 
with  the  management.^  It  has  been  tried.  It  has 
worked  excellently.  There  is  one  factory  where  no 
decision  in  several  years  has  been  appealed  from.  Dis- 
putes have  died  away.  We  shall  hear  much  of  "  work- 
shop councils  "  in  the  next  five  years.  The  experi- 
ment offers  the  one  sane,  peaceable  way  out  of  a 
struggle  that,  "  unnegotiated,"  will  throw  industry 
into  chaos. 

Let  us  consider  in  detail  what  the  workshop  council 
will  do.  It  will  deal  with  the  admission  of  unskilled 
workers  into  the  factory,  with  piecework  prices,  shop 
discipline,  suspension  and  dismissal,  welfare,  organiza- 
tion, and  production,  'Vtime  "  rules,  consideration  of 
complaints,  methods  of  increasing  efficiency,  discussion 
of  hours  of  work,  and  the  necessity  of  periods  of  over- 
time, supervision  of  eating-halls,  organization  of  recrea- 
tion. The  council  will  represent  a  department,  and 
will  send  one  representative  for  every  fifty  workers, 
for  instance.  Thus  a  department  with  250  workmen 
will  send  five  representatives.  Sitting  with  the 
council  in  equal  numbers  will  be  the  manager  of  the 
department  and  his  assistants.  For  a  large  factory 
the  departmental  councils  will  meet  and  elect  a  "  works 
council " — ^twenty-five  workers  and  twenty-five  man- 
agers and  assistants, — ^who  will  consider  matters 
touching  the  works  as  a  whole.  On  questions  such  as 
fixing  day  wages  and  the  level  that  governs  piece 
wages,  the  employer  will  continue  to  deal  direct  with 
1  Sec  Appendix,  "  The  Tie  Vote." 


48  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  trade-unions,  but  the  piece  rates  themselves 
will  be  arranged  by  the  workshop  councils. 

This  is  all  experimental  and  tentative.  It  may 
break  down  under  bitterness  or  trickery.  It  may 
be  manipulated  by  clever  men.  Chesterton,  who  is 
a  hearty  mediae valist,  desiring  general  peasant  pro- 
prietorship, calls  the  scheme  of  "  a  certain  proletarian 
representation  in  the  employer's  council "  "  the  man- 
trap of  the  management."  He  says  that  "  the  first 
few  labour  representatives  filtered  cautiously  into  the 
'  management '  will  be  beaten  at  the  game.  That  is 
why  they  will  be  allowed  to  play  at  it." 

Perhaps,  but  the  idea  is  in  line  with  democratic 
principle.  It  is  being  worked  at  by  the  best  minds 
in  England,  and  it  offers  the  one  peaceable  way  out  of 
a  strife  that  grows  more  intense  every  month. 

The  situation  is  this :  labour  is  going  to  demand 
higher  wages.  To  obtain  them,  labour  must  produce 
more  goods,  and  the  employer  must  improve  his 
methods,  instal  new  machinery,  and  consult  the 
worker.  Some  employers  will  meet  the  situation 
with  superlatively  good  management — a.  management 
that  will  welcome  the  worker  to  a  share  in  control, 
and  will  increase  production  and  wages  without  finan- 
cial loss.  Some  employers  will  make  decreased  profits, 
some  will  go  to  the  wall,  and  some  will  fight  the  new 
conditions.  If  wisdom  prevails  on  both  sides,  a  new 
constitution  of  industry  will  be  achieved. 

Workshop  councils  of  the  employees  have  already 
been  formed  in  the  one  hundred  national  munition 
factories.    They   are   rapidly   being   formed   in   the 


LABOUR  49 

4,700  controlled  establishments.  Martin  Hall,  of  the 
Ministry  of  Munitions,  who  has  been  instrumental 
in  forming  these  councils,  tells  me  they  are  working 
with  a  minimum  of  friction.  Before  they  are  set  up, 
the  employer  dreads  them  as  an  interference  with  his 
management,  and  the  worker  regards  them  as  a 
"  welfare  device "  to  extract  higher  production 
without  increase  of  wages.  But  the  council,  once 
established,  operates  to  lessen  suspicion  and  to  better 
conditions.  A  new  constitution  is  thus  being  written 
for  labour,  a  constitution  that  gives  representation 
in  the  control  of  working  conditions. 

The  head  of  a  large  manufactory  has  sent  me  the 
details  of  his  council  as  now  in  operation  in  the 
"  Almond  Paste  Department."  His  business  is  not 
the  best  field  for  studying  workers*  control,  because 
the  labour  is  largely  female,  because  the  industry 
is  not  nationally  organized  like  the  building  and 
engineering  trades,  and  because  the  experiment  is 
only  in  its  beginning.  But  wdth  a  new  application  of 
a  principle,  we  have  to  take  it  where  we  find  it,  and 
push  on  with  the  experiment.  The  departments  of 
the  factory  have  well  defined  sections,  so  each  section 
has  a  sub  or  sectional  council.  The  number  of  dele- 
gates for  each  sectional  council  is  fixed  on  the  basis 
of  one  delegate  for  every  twelve  w^orkers  (of  whatever 
age)  or  part  of  twelve  exceeding  six,  employed  in  the 
section.  Sitting  with  these  at  the  meetings  of  each 
sectional  council,  and  having  equal  powers  with  them, 
are  the  manager  of  the  department  with  the  head 
and  sub-overlookers,  monitors  or  chargemen  of  the 

D 


50  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

particular  section.  Should  these,  however  (including 
the  manager)  exceed  in  number  the  workers'  delegates, 
the  members  of  the  council,  representing  the  adminis- 
tration, consist  of  the  manager  and  head  overlookers, 
together  with  as  many  of  the  sub-overlookers,  charge- 
men  and  monitors  (elected  by  ballot  amongst  them- 
selves) as  are  required  to  make  up  a  number  equal 
to  that  of  the  workers*  delegates.  The  manager  of  the 
department  is  ex-offlcio  chairman  of  the  sectional 
councils.  He  does  not  have  a  casting  vote.  In  case 
of  a  drawn  vote  the  matter  is  submitted  to  the  director 
controlling  the  department. 

In  addition,  there  is  one  delegate  appointed  by  each 
union  concerned  (for  the  men's  sectional  councils, 
from  the  men's  union,  and  for  the  women's  sectional 
councils  from  the  women's  union),  who  shall  be 
allowed  to  speak,  but  shall  have  no  vote.  Such  dele- 
gates shall  be  deemed  to  hold  a  watching  brief  for  the 
union,  but  shall  be  in  the  employment  of  the  firm  and 
working  in  the  department,  and  preferably,  though  not 
necessarily,  in  the  section. 

The  departmental  council  is  a  distinct  body  from 
the  sectional  councils,  and  consists  of  one  member  for 
every  fifty  workers  (or  part  of  fifty  exceeding  twenty- 
five),  with  an  equal  number  of  the  administrative  staff, 
namely,  manager,  head  overlookers,  sub-overlookers, 
monitors  and  chargemen.  Where  these  exceed  the 
workers,  the  members  representing  the  administration 
consist  of  the  manager  and  head  overlookers,  together 
with  as  many  of  the  sub-overlookers,  chargemen,  and 
monitors  (elected  by  ballot  amongst  themselves),  as  are 


LABOUR  51 

required  to  make  up  a  number  equal  to  that  of  the 
workers'  delegates. 

At  the  meetings  of  the  departmental  councils  there 
will  also  he  one  delegate  appointed  by  the  union  repre- 
senting the  men  and  one  by  the  union  representing  the 
women,  who  shall  be  allowed  to  speak,  but  shall  have 
no  votes.  Such  delegates  shall  be  deemed  to  hold  a 
watching  brief  for  the  union,  but  shall  be  in  the  employ- 
ment of  the  firm  and  working  in  the-  department. 

Further,  the  workers  will  be  entitled  to  have  the 
attendance  of  a  permanent  official  of  their  union,  not 
necessarily  in  the  employment  of  the  firm,  during  the 
discussion  of  any  matter  on  which  they  consider  that 
they  should  have  skilled  assistance  and  advice.  Any 
such  official  attending  a  departmental  council  meeting 
shall  withdraw  as  soon  as  the  matter  is  disposed  of  upon 
which  his  or  her  advice  has  been  required. 

Nothing  that  takes  place  at  a  sectional  or  depart- 
mental council  shall  prejudice  the  trade  union  in 
raising  any  question  in  the  ordinary  way.  Questions 
of  general  principle  such  as  the  working  week,  wage 
standards  and  general  wage  rules,  shall  not  be  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  councils. 

All  male  employees  over  21  years  of  age  and  all 
female  employees  over  16,  who  have  been  employed 
by  the  firm  for  six  months  (whether  on  the  regular 
staff  or  not),  will  be  eligible  to  vote  for  delegates  to 
both  the  sectional  or  departmental  councils,  and  to 
become  members  of  such  councils.  Delegates  will  be 
elected  to  serve  for  one  year.  They  will  be  ehgible 
for  re-election  so  long  as  they  remain  in  the  employ- 


52  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ment  of  the  company.  No  deduction  will  be  made 
from  the  wages  of  day-workers  for  the  time  occupied 
as  delegates  in  attending  the  council  meetings,  and 
pieceworkers  will  receive  an  average  wage  for  the  time 
so  occupied. 

Based  on  this  constitution,  the  sectional  and  depart- 
mental councils  in  the  Almond  Paste  Department 
work  out  as  follows  : — 

SECTIONAL. 

There  are  six  Sectional  Councils  as  under  : — 
Women,   (i)  Bottoms  and  Centres. 

(2)  Pipers  and  Coverers. 

(3)  Makers. 

(4)  Packers  and  Labellers. 

Men.        (5)  Slab,  Machine  and  Boiling  (4th  floor). 
(6)  Crystallizing    and    Piping    (5th    floor), 
Cage  and  Carting  (3rd  floor). 

The  number  of  delegates  for  each  of  these  councils 
work  out  thus  : — 

(i)  Bottoms  and  Centres.  No.  of  Delegates. 

Bottoms — Room  i  2 

Bottoms — Room  2  2 

Centres — Room  i  3 

Centres — ^Room  2  i 

Total      8 


(2)  Pipers  and 
Room  I 
Room  2 

Coverers. 

II 

5 

Total      ... 

16 

(3)  Makers 

..        .«.        .f. 

...      6 

LABOUR  53 

{4)  Packers  and  Labellers.  No.  of  delegates. 

Packers 9 

Labellers ...      2 

Total      II 

(5)  Slab,  Machine  and  Boiling  (4tli  floor)  5 

(6)  Crystallizing  and  Piping  (5th  floor)    ...      6 
Cage  and  Carting  (3rd  floor)      i 

Total      7 

The    number    of    delegates    to    the    departmentar 

council  is  shown  below  : — 

Bottoms  and  Centres.  No.  of  Delegates, 

Bottoms — Rooms  i  and  2      i 

Centres — Rooms  i  and  2        i 

Pipers  and  Coverers. 

Room  I 3 

*  Room  2 I 

Makers     ... 2 

Packers  and  Labellers       ,-^.        ...  2 

Slab,  Machine  and  Boiling  (4th  floor)  i 
Crystallizing  and  Piping  (5th  floor), 

and  Cage  AND  Carting  (3rd  floor)      ...  i 

Total      12 

What  are  the  matters  dealt  with  by  these  works' 
councils  ? 

(i)  The  criticism  of  any  Piece  Wages  not  thought  to  be 
fair  or  adequate,  and  the  consideration  or  sugges- 
tions for  adjustment. 

(2)  'The  consideration  of  conditions  and  hours  of  work 

in  the  Department. 

(3)  The    consideration    of    departmental    organization 

and  production. 

(4)  Rules  and  discipline. 


54  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  Engineering  Trades  are  perfecting  a  similar 
system  of  workers*  control.  F.  S.  Button,  of  the 
Executive  Council  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers,  has  sent  me  the  outline. 

SHOP  COMMITTEES 

The  committee  comprise  representatives  from  the 
management  and  the  workpeople  in  equal  numbers.  The 
management  choose  their  own  representatives.  The  work- 
people elect  by  ballot  their  representatives.  Care  should 
be  taken  that  the  trade  unions  shall  be  represented. 
Each  side  appoints  its  own  chairman  and  secretary. 
Each  side  submits  its  agenda  to  the  other  for  discussion 
at  joint  meetings  which  should  be  held  weekly  during 
workshop  hours,  to  deal  with  : — 

1.  Improved    methods    of    manufacture,    tools,    jigs, 

gauges,  and  to  make  suggestions  thereon  ;   also 
new  methods  of  production. 

2.  Class  of  labour  to  be  used  on  new  types  or  recon- 

structed machines. 
(3)  Criticism  and  adjustment   in   existing  piecework 

prices. 
{4)  Co-operation  with  the  management  in  supervision. 

(5)  Shop  troubles  and  grievances. 

(6)  Suspensions  and  dismissals  consequent  upon  slack- 

ness in  trade. 

(7)  Shop   rules — ^time-keeping,    meal   hours,    cleaning 

time,  clock  allowances,  changes  in  starting  time. 

(8)  Suggestions  to  change  the  method  of  remuneration 

from  day  work  to  piecework  or  a  bonus  system, 
or  vice  versa, 

(9)  The  problem  of  the  disabled  soldier. 

(10)  Matters  relating  to  welfare. 

(11)  Demarcation  between  trades  with  the  free  sanction 

of  the  unions  concerned. 

(12)  Advise  generally  on  labour  and  workshop  condi- 

tions. 


LABOUR  55 

The  Committee  must  not  interfere  with  recognized  trade 
union  practices,  nor  deeil  with  matters  covered  by  agree- 
ments, except  with  approval  of  the  parties  concerned. 

Where  it  is  necessary  owing  to  the  complex  organization 
of  the  works  to  set  up  more  than  one  shop  committee,  a 

CENTRAL   WORKS   COUNCIL 

shall  be  formed  from  the  shop  committee. 

The  basis  of  representation  shall  in  each  case  be  the 
same.  The  board  of  directors  shall  appoint  the  chairman 
for  its  side,  the  trade  union  shall  choose  a  representative 
workman  as  chairman  for  the  side  of  the  workpeople.  The 
council  shall  sit  during  factory  hours  to  deal  with  : — 

1.  Reports  from  shop  committees. 

2.  Refer  back  unadopted  portions  of  report  to  shop 

committee -concerned. 

3.  Decide  matters  from  such  reports  which  affect  the 

factory  as  a  whole  as  distinct  from  the  shop. 

4.  Generally    to    assist    the    management    in    matters 

relating  to  production  and  organization. 

5.  To  initiate  reforms  arising  out  of  new,  legislation 

affecting  factories  and  workshops. 

6.  Assist  after  the  war  period  in  the  resumption  of 

existing  laws. 

7.  Consider  matters  referred  to  them  by  the  board  of 

directors '  or  the  workpeople's    side  of   the   work- 
shop committees. 

8.  To  appoint  a  representative  from  each  side  of  the 

council  to  sit  with  the  board  of  directors  when 
reports  from  the  council  are  being  considered. 

No  workshop  committee  or  works  council  shall  have  any 
power  to  impose  any  restriction  on  the  employers  or  work- 
people either  with  regard  to  lock-outs  or  strikes,  or  to 
institute  any  system  of  profit-sharing  or  co-partnership. 

The  council  must  not  interfere  with  recognized  trade 
union  practices,  nor  deal  with  matters  covered  by  agree- 
ments except  with  approval  of  the  parties  concerned. 


56  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

LOCAL   JOINT   COMMITTEES 

The  members  shall  consist  of  an  equal  number  of 
employers  and  workpeople  appointed  by  the  employers' 
associations  and  by  the  trade  union  organizations  in  the 
district. 

Each  side  shall  appoint  a  chairman  and  secretary.  At 
local  conferences  each  chairman  shall  preside  over  his  own 
side.  Each  side  shall  be  entitled  to  hold  a  prehminary 
meeting  separately  to  consider  and  prepare  its  agenda,  and 
to  discuss  its  pohcy  on  questions  to  be  submitted  to  the 
local  conferences. 

The  Committee  shall  meet  at  least  fortnightly  and  the 
following  matters  should  be  within  its  competence  : — 

1.  References  from  each  side  of  works  council  within  its 

area. 

2.  Codification,  unification,  and  amendment  of  working 

rules : — 

{a)  HoHdays. 

(b)  Sunday  labour. 

(c)  Overtime. 

(d)  Shift  systems. 

(e)  Demarcation  between  classes  of  labour. 

3.  Co-ordination  of  local  workshop  practice. 

4.  General  district  matters  relating  to  welfare  work. 

5.  Discuss  by  mutual  consent  and  reference,  matters 

covered  by  existing  agreements. 

6.  Discuss  relations  between  both  sides  not  covered  by 

existing  agreements. 

In  the  period  succeeding  the  war  the  committee  should 
also  be  encouraged  to  settle  by  agreement : — 

1.  Questions  arising  out  of  the  restoration   of  trade 

union  conditions,  including  questions  of  priority 
of  employment  and  the  restoration  of  trade  union 
rules  and  customs. 

2.  Problems  of  the  employment  of  disabled  soldiers  and 

sailors. 

3.  Questions  relating  to  demobihzation  and  the  dis- 

charge and  re-employment  of  emergency  workers. 


LABOUR  57 

The  Committee  shall  take  no  action  that  contravenes 
any  agreement  between  employers  and  the  trade  unions, 
whether  such  agreement  be  local  or  national  in  character. 

CENTRAL   CONCILIATION   BOARD 

Such  boards  shall  be  set  up  in  each  industry,  and  shall 
be  represeiitative  of  the  central  executive  of  employers 
and  the  trade  union  or  unions  concerned. 

The  representation  shall  be  equal  in  numbers,  each  side 
having  the  right  to  appoint  a  chairman  and  secretary. 

Each  side  shall  be  entitled  to  hold  a  preliminary  meeting 
to  consider  and  discuss  its  policy  on  the  agenda. 

The  matters  competent  for  discussion  shall  be  confined  to 

1.  Appeals  from  the  local  joint  committees ;    appeals 

may  be  made  by  each  side  of  the  local  joint  com- 
mittees. Representatives  from  the  local  joint  com- 
mittees shall  attend  in  a  consultative  capacity,  but 
shall  not  sit  in  session  or  take  official  part  in  the 
proceedings. 

2.  Discuss  relations  between  employers  and  workpeople 

not  covered  by  existing  agreements  ;  no  new  agree- 
ments to  be  arranged  without  the  full  concurrence 
of  all  parties  concerned. 

3.  Act  as  a  permanent  advisory  board  to  the  Govern- 

ment on  all  questions  affecting  the  industry,  and 
to  be  empowered  to  suggest  alterations,  modifica- 
tions, and  additions  to  existing  laws,  or  fresh  enact- 
ments required. 

4.  Such  proposed  new  legislation  or  amendments  to 

existing  laws  to  be  submitted  to  the  Department 
of  State  concerned. 

5.  In  the  event  of  such  Department  of  State  refusing 

to  accept  in  whole  or  part  such  proposals,  the  central 
conciliation  board  should  have  the  right  to  appeal 
to  the  Cabinet  and  to  state  its  reasons  for  tabling 
its  proposals. 

6.  The  Cabinet  shall  not  have  the  absolute  right  to  veto 

without  an  appeal,  and  vote  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, on  the  question  raised. 


58  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

BENEFITS    RESULTING   TO   INDUSTRY 

1.  Harmony  in  the  factory,  workshop,  or  mine. 

2.  Assurance  of  industrial  peace. 

3.  Would  give  the  worker  a  real  chance  to  achieve 

responsibility. 

4.  Guarantee  of  continuity  of  labour. 

5.  Tend  to  abolish  the  spirit  of  antagonism  and  distrust. 

6.  Greater  productivity  in  the  workshop. 

7.  Would  provide  the  missing  link  in  Industry — Co- 

operation. 

8.  Bring  about  a  real  community  of  interest  between 

employers  and  workpeople,  and  secure  co-ordina- 
tion of  the  whole  factory  system  so  far  as  the  work- 
shop is  concerned. 

The  Executive  Committee  of  the  National  Union 
of  Rail  way  men  have  drawn  up  their  demand.  "  At 
each  large  shop  centre  there  shall  be  formed  a  local 
shops  committee.  There  shall  be  a  central  committee 
for  each  railway.  There  shall  be  established  on  each 
railway  a  conciliation  board."  The  following  is  an 
example  of  the  method  of  constituting  the  board  : — 

No,  of 


No.  of 

repre- 

Groups of  grades. 

men. 

sentatives. 

{a)  Engine  drivers,  firemen, 

cleaners,  electric  motor- 

men    

7.500 

4 

(6)  Shed  men,  electric  light 

men,  hydraulic   men, 

&c 

1,900 

I 

(c)  Carriage  and  wagon  exam- 

iners, washers,  &c.    ... 

1,200 

I 

(d)  Signalmen,  &c 

3,100 

2 

(e)  Guards,  shunters,  &c.     ... 

4*300 

2 

(/)  General    porters,    parcels 

staff,  &c 

3,500 

2 

(g)  Goods  shed  and  yard  staff 

4,500 

2 

LABOUR  59 

No.  of 

No.  of  represen- 

Gfoups  of  grades.               men.  tatives. 

(h)  Cartage  staff       3,700  2 

(i)  Platelayers         4,600  2 

(j)  Ballast  men,  &c.            ...     2,000  i 
[k)  Signal  and  telegraph  men, 

&c ...        500  I 

A  Builders'  National  Industrial  Parliament  has  been 
advocated  by  the  National  Associated  Building  Trades 
Council,  representing  the  national  executives  of  the 
principal  trade  unions  in  the  industry.  The  constitu- 
tion calls  for  works  committees,  representing  Manage- 
ment and  Labour  in  particular  shops,  for  joint  district 
boards,  and  for  a  national  parliament,  where  sit 
twenty  members  appointed  by  the  National  Federation 
of  Building  Trades  Employers  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  and  twenty  members  appointed  by  the 
National  Associated  Building  Trades  Council. 

So  enters  the  principle  of  self-government  in  industry. 
This  is  totally  different  from  Compulsory  Arbitration, 
though  often  confused  with  it.  Arbitration  deals 
with  matters  that  have  reached  the  boiHng  point.  A 
Joint  Board  deals  with  process  and  relationship  before 
friction  has  developed,  and  thus  keeps  clear  of  that 
region  in  men's  minds  where  emotion  is  kindled,  and 
where  matters  of  fact  are  heated  into  matters  of  prin- 
ciple. Once  a  question  of  fact  has  become  a  "  matter 
of  principle  "  it  is  always  difficult  and  often  impos- 
sible for  arbitration  boards  to  deal  with  it.  This 
sharp  distinction  must  be  realized,  because  on  its 
recognition  hinges  the  change  in  the  status  of  the 


6o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

worker.  By  Government  and  private  action  he  is 
now  being  admitted  to  a  place  in  deciding  on  the 
next  step,  before  the  next  step  is  taken.  Many  em- 
ployers wish  a  scheme -of  compulsory  arbitration,  with 
penal  clauses  against  striking.  The  Trade  Unions 
will  not  consent,  because  they  do  not  care  for  indus- 
trial harmony  by  compulsion.  A  number  of  employers 
will  offer  co-partnerships  and  profit-sharing.  The 
Trade  Unions  will  not  consent.  Talk  of  national 
efficiency,  and  world  markets  alone  will  not  win  the 
Trade  Unions.  To  meet  their  opposition,  a  measure 
of  control  must  be  granted  to  them.  So  Joint  Stand- 
ing Councils  of  employers  and  employed  have  already 
been  formed,  and  will  continue  to  be  formed,  to  secure 
increased  productivity  in  industry  and  a  better  status 
for  labour.  Since  October  of  1915,  the  Lancashire  and 
Cheshire  Coal  Association  (of  employers)  and  the 
Lancashire  and  Cheshire  Miners'  Federation  (of  workers) 
have  had  an  agreement.  The  coal  owners  undertake 
that  no  general  notice  to  terminate  contracts  shall  be 
given  at  any  colliery.  The  miners  undertake  that  no 
general  strike  or  cessation  of  work  shall  take  place. 
Any  general  dispute  is  referred  to  the  Conciliation 
Board.  They  have  always  come  to  agreement  without 
calling  in  the  independent  chairman.  Any  local  dis- 
pute is  referred  to  the  Joint  District  Board,  made  up 
of  owners'  and  workers'  representatives. 

Self-government  will  not  offer  grave  difficulties  in 
the  twelve  or  fifteen  highly  organized  trades,  where 
organized  co-operation  is  understood.  It  will  come 
much  more  slowly  in  the  unskilled  occupations.    A 


LABOUR  6i 

partial  application  of  this  principle  of  workers'  control 
has  long  been  made.  Thus  coal-miners  possess  the 
right  to  have  the  employers'  calculations  checked  by 
the  men's  official.  The  merv  by  a  decision  of  the 
majority  of  those  employed  in  any  pit,  have,  at  the 
expense  of  the  whole  pit,  a  checkweigher  with  full 
power  to  keep  an  accurate  and  independent  record  of 
each  man's  work.  He  is  the  representative  of  the  men 
at  the  pit  bank  to  check  the  weight  to  be  paid  for. 
Another  instance  is  the  "  chapel  "  of  the  compositors, 
where  the  ''  clicker,"  who  hands  out  copy  to  com- 
positors, is  appointed  and  frequently  paid  by  the 
*'  chapel,"  the  ancient  organization  of  the  workmen. 

But,  almost  at  one  stroke,  this  principle  of  self- 
government  has  been  greatly  extended.  It  is  all 
part  of  the  general  movement  toward  the  organized 
State.  The  employers  will  form  great  combines.  The 
workers  will  continue  to  develop  the  strength  of  trade 
unions,  and  will  exercise  that  strength  in  the  control 
of  their  working  conditions^  In  the  coming  years, 
workers'  control  will  be  the  most  discussed  item  in 
England's  reconstruction.  Because  it  is  in  line  with 
democratic  tendency,  the  movement  will  soon  spread 
to  other  countries.  It  is  time  that  statesmen,  social 
experts,  writers,  and  industrial  leaders  begin  to  study 
it.    They  will  be  forced  to  accept  it. 

Democratic  Control 

In  this  age,  when  psychology  is  taking  over  new 
realms  of  fact  every  year,  it  is  increasingly  difficult 
to  use  a  phrase  about  society  which  is  accurate  in 


62  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

describing  the  instinctive  life  of  forty-five  million 
persons.  Yet  one  must  have  a  vocabulary  in  order  to 
talk.  The  phrase  "  democratic  control  *'  appears 
throughout  this  book.  By  the  principle  of  democratic 
control  I  mean  the  application  to  the  institutions  of 
property  and  the  state  of  the  sum  of  the  desires  and 
impulses  of  the  persons  composing  the  modern  nation- 
state.  Those  desires  and  impulses  are  often  thought 
about  and  definitely  expressed  in  a  reasoned  pro- 
gramme of  action,  as  in  the  gradually  developing 
"  will  to  war  "  of  the  British  people.  Often  they  are 
held  only  in  the  sub-conscious  mind,  exploding  through 
from  time  to  time  in  blind  action.  But  the  desires 
and  impulses  of  the  m^ass  people  have  to-day  a  power 
in  shaping  legislation,  controlling  administration, 
adapting  environment,  and  establishing  new  social 
relationships,  which,  through  lack  of  organization, 
they  did  not  possess  in  earlier  periods.  Suppression, 
thwarting,  submission  are  not  acceptable  to  the  people 
of  a  modern  nation,  and  they  have  determined  to  live 
a  more  creative  life. 

'*  Democratic  control "  is  a  convenient  phrase 
for  describing  what  is' taking  place  in  society,  which 
we  express  concretely  by  using  the  terms  "  labour 
movement,"  "  woman  movement,"  "  welfare  work," 
"  British  commonwealth,"  "  rights  of  little  nations." 
An  increasing  number  of  people  are  seeing  what  they 
want  and  are  getting  it.  An  increasing  number  of 
women  are  desiring  a  living  wage  and  the  vote,  and 
they  are  organizing  their  thought  and  will  to  obtain 
them.    An  increasing  number  of  manual  workers  are 


LABOUR  63 

wishing  to  control  the  conditions  of  their  working  life, 
and  they  are  acting  together  in  order  to  win  that 
status.  The  dominions  are  growing  restive  under 
an  imperial  policy  conducted  by  England  alone,  and 
they  are  preparing  to  take  a  hand  in  the  shaping  of 
that  policy.  These  are  instances  of  democratic  control 
— ^the  application  to  government  and  contract  of  the 
sum  of  the  desires  and  impulses  of  millions  of  persons. 
Our  modern  social  movement,  which  is  seeking  to 
achieve  the  organized  state  under  democratic  control, 
operates  through  private  ownership  and  individualism 
(property),  co-operation,  state  control  (socialism),  and 
occupational  association  (syndicalism)  .^  The  socialistic 
state  has  greatly  extended  its  function  in  the  present 
war.  Non-local  association,  or  syndicalism,  is  increas- 
ing its  strength  through  workshop  councils,  joint 
boards,  and  the  various  organizations  of  common 
occupation,  trade-unions,  "  industrial  workers,"  guilds. 
Co-operation  is  powerful  in  Ireland,  and  co-operation 
of  consumers  has  had  a  long  and  successful  history 
in  England.  Property — the  idea  of  the  "  small  owner," 
the  "  peasant  proprietor,"  one's  right  to  one's  "  very 
own,"  is  still  intrenched.  Any  dogmatism  on  the 
claims  of  one  of  these  against  the  others  must  to-day  be 
rejected  as  not  fitting  the  facts.  Any  prophecy  as 
to  which  will  contribute  most  decisively  to  the  future 
organization  of  society  is  gratuitous.  Each  overlaps 
upon  the  others,  but  all  are  expressions  of  the  im- 
pulse toward  freedom,  and  the  social  movement  is  the 
resultant. 

*  See  Appendix  on  "  Co-operation,  Socialism,  Syndicalism.'* 


64  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Particular  tendencies  in  the  social  movement  cannot 
be  exclusively  identified  with  particular  psychological 
dispositions.    Dr.  Graham  Wallas  writes  to  me  : 

The  extension  of  democratic  control  is  of  course 
dependent  on  knowledge,  or  imagination,  as  well 
as  impulse.  More  exactly,  impulse  in  the  modern 
world  has  to  be  stimulated  rather  by  our  ideas  of 
what  we  cannot  see  or  hear  than  by  our  direct 
sensations.  The  Railway  Men's  Union  is  growing 
stronger  because  individual  railwaymen  are  getting 
a  more  definite  conception  of  the  capital-  and 
state-machine  instead  of  a  vague  acquiescence  in  a 
social  order  felt  to  be  irresistible  (or,  rather,  not 
felt  to  be  resistible) ;  because  they  have  a  conception 
of  improving  their  position  neither  by  individual 
industry  nor  by  state  action,  but  by  syndical 
action ;  because  they  have  learnt  by  experience 
that  improvement  can  be  brought  about  by  syndical 
action. 

There  is  not  half  enough  concentrated  thinking 
being  done.  The  Labour  party  in  its  latest  con- 
ference displayed  as  much  hot  feeling  over  infinitesimal 
details  as  the  protagonists  in  an  Irish  election,  and 
it  dissolved  without  any  large  programme.  The 
Speaker's  Conference  on  Electoral  Reform  "  approved  " 
of  the  principle  of  woman  suffrage,  but  failed  to  include 
a  measure  to  obtain  it  in  the  resolutions.  No  synthetic 
plan  of  reconstruction  is  anywhere  in  sight.  What 
will  happen  is  that  the  pressure  of  necessity  will  force 
reforms,  bill  by  bill,  detail  by  detail.  This  is  a  costly 
way.  It  means  that  each  group  in  the  community  will 
fight  like  a  lone  wolf  for  its  bone.  It  is  possible  that 
the  engineering  trades,  for  instance,  which  will  come 


LABOUR  65 

out  on  top  during  the  first  years  of  peace,  will  leave 
women  and  unskilled  men  to  fight  their  own  battles, 
failing  to  see  that  a  standard  of  living  and  high  produc- 
tion are  principles  established  only  by  combined  effort. 

Each  class  division  in  the  community  is  sulking 
in  its  corner  and  hugging  half  a  dozen  pet  fallacies. 
The  employer  still  believes  that  the  aim  of  industry 
is  a  product  rather  than  human  welfare.  He  still 
believes  in  laissez-faire,  "  immutable  laws  of  supply 
and  demand/'  a  servile  wage  class.  The  worker  still 
regards  "  economic  determinism  "  as  governing  the 
multitudinous  currents  of  human  history.  He  still 
beHeves  that  there  is  only  a  certain  fixed  amount 
of  work  and  money  to  be  ladled  out,  a  pool  unfed  by 
expanding  production.  He  still  believes  in  limiting 
the  number  of  workers  and  circumscribing  the  areas 
and  methods  of  production.  He  still  distrusts  the 
intellect  as  an  instrument  for  establishing  justice. 

But  the  principle  of  democratic  control  forces  its 
own  way  irresistibly  through  the  storm  of  words  and 
conflicting  purposes.  If  only  one  man  in  England 
apprehended  it,  it  would  have  to  prevail,  for  it  leads 
out  of  chaos.  It  abolishes  ignorance  and  poverty. 
It  releases  the  good-will  which  lies  hidden  and 
obstructed  in  our  nature.  It  promises  equality,  and 
perhaps  some  day  will  bring  in  beauty  to  a  troubled 
and  unlovely  w^orld. 

The  Pioneers 

England  is  becoming  an  industrial  democracy, 
but  the  talk  is  all  of  speeding  up  production  and 


66  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

making  a  better  machine  of  the  worker.  The  solu- 
tions of  reconstruction  necessitate  a  consideration  of 
new  automatic  machines  and  subdivisions  of  repetitive 
processes.  There  is  talk  of  a  still  hotter  war  of  com- 
petition than  in  the  old  dreary  factory  daj^s.  Many 
of  these  discussions  of  the  British  Association  and 
'*  The  Round  Table  "  and  the  Fabians  and  the  govern- 
ment reports  lean  in  the  direction  of  Americanizing 
and  Germanizing  England.  When  you  have  made  a 
good  workman  in  that  sense,  you  haven't  made  a  good 
man  at  all.  You  have  made  a  sharpened  tool  of  pro- 
duction or  a  narrov/,  concentrated  huckster.  I  feel 
in  all  this  programme  something  alien  to  the  English 
nature.  Half  the  fine  virtues  of  a  liberal  life  lie  outside 
such  competitive  industrial  requirements.    , 

Once  the  question  of  "  wages  and  hours  "  is  settled, 
and  that  is  only  a  detail  of  management  which  will  be 
settled,  we  reach  the  heart  of  the  problem.  Can  the 
curse  be  removed  from  machinery  ?  Can  joy  be  put 
into  work  ?  What  of  the  jobs  that  are  monotonous  ? 
Will  they  lessen  in  number  ? 

The  instant  that  joy  enters  into  work  the  problems 
of  overtime  and  fatigue  disappear.  Elasticity  of  spirit 
gives  a  swift  recovery.  Freedom  to  choose  one's 
work,  the  right  to  arrange  one's  working  conditions, 
skill  in  doing  the  task,  pride  in  the  product — ^these  are 
the  elements  that  result  in  "joy  in  work,"  are  they 
not  ?  What  promise  does  the  future  give  us  that  this 
quality  of  joy  will  enter  into  the  work  of  the  masses  ? 
An  eight-hour  day  and  a  minimum  wage  of  forty  shil- 
lings a  week  do  not  help  us  here  at  all.    Will  the 


LABOUR  67 

increasing  control  of  working  conditions  by  the 
workers  themselves  remove  this  curse  of  monotony, 
the  grind  of  the  machines  on  the  human  spirit  ?  Will 
the  fact  of  control  alter  the  effect  of  the  work,  so  that 
automatically  it  will  pass  from  a  condition  of  slavery 
to  a  condition  of  freedom  ?  Will  the  worker,  in 
exercising  his  will  on  the  terms  and  conditions  of  his 
employment,  find  a  full  release  for  his  powers,  with 
the  resulting  sense  of  self-expression  and  its  accompani- 
ment of  joy  ? 

Or*will  the  increasing  control  of  working  conditions 
by  the  workers  result  in  a  fundamental  remodelling 
of  the  nature  of  the  work  itself  ?  If  so,  in  what  forms 
will  that  change  show  itself  ?  For  instance,  some  of 
the  happiest  communities  of  the  past  were  sm-ely 
settled  agricultural  communities.  Will  the  workers 
in  part  return  to  the  land,  rendered  more  fertile  by 
m.odern  methods  of  intensive  agriculture  ?  Will  there 
be  an  era  of  noble  building  like  that  of  the  twelfth 
century  ?  Will  the  modern  democracy  find  it  worth 
while  to  create  beauty  ?         "  > 

Then  there  remains  the  use  of  leisure.  Are  we  to 
learn  an  art  of  living  ?  Will  creative  activities  be 
honoured  ?  Nothing  is  more  striking  in  the  last 
hundred  years  than  the  fact  that  the  poet  and  the 
saint  "  do  not  count."  They  have  lost  control  over 
the  channels  of  power.  The  artist  in  any  of  the  great 
forms  has  little  influence  to-day.  It  is  easy  to  reply, 
"  Let  the  great  artist  come,  and  we  will  listen  "  ; 
but  to  produce  great  persons,  the  heart  of  the  people 
must  be  turned  that  way.    We  are  not  quiet  enough 


68  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

or  responsive  enough  to  form  and  nourish  such  growths. 
Not  only  are  the  masters  of  modern  industry  material- 
istic, but  the  workers  are  materialistic.    The  trade- 
union  programme,  the  socialist  platform,  the  reforms 
of  the  social  experts — all  these  centre  about  matters 
of  physical  well-being  and  industrial  efficiency.    What 
has  all  this  to  do  with  outlook  on  life,  the  knowledge 
of  true  values,  an  understanding  of  the  meaning  and 
end  of  existence  ?     Outlook  on  life  is  determined  by 
the  use  of  leisure — ^by  the  pictures  one  sees,  the  music 
one  hears,  the  books  one  reads,  the  talk  one  shares, 
the  games  one  plays.    The  only  education  an  adult 
receives,  apart  from  that  of  the  working-day,  with  its 
repetitive  processes  for  most  employees,  is  in  the 
recreation  of  his  leisure  hours.    School  ends  for  most 
of  the  human  race  at  fourteen  years  of  age.    The  lives 
of  modern  workers  are  dark  with  drudgery  for  the  work- 
ing shift  and  spattered  with  cheap  surface  sensation 
in  the  hours  of  release.    Fatigue  and  excitement  march 
together  through  our  city  streets. 

These  are  the  two  great  questions  of  our  time  : 
Can  the  nature  of  work  be  ennobled  ?  Can  spiritual 
values  be  restored  to  modern  life  ?  For  fifteen  years 
these  questions  of  what  use  shall  be  made  of  life  under 
a  true  industrial  democracy  have  seemed  to  me  the 
most  important,  the  least  discussed  questions  of  our 
day.  Now  that  industrial  democracy  is  arriving  in 
England,  I  have  put  these  questions  to  the  leaders  of 
public  opinion.  I  have  talked  with  Lloyd  George, 
experts  of  the  Home  Office,  of  the  work  councils,  with 
John  Burns,  Seebohm  Rowntree,  Snowden,  Button, 


LABOUR  69 

MacDonald,  Mallon,  every  type  of  mind  in  the  indus- 
trial struggle.  No  one  person  is  responsible  for  the 
conclusions  which  I  give,  but  they  seem  to  me  a  just 
summary  of  the  best  English  opinion. 

Will  industry  slide  over  into  an  old-fashioned 
balance  between  agriculture  and  factory  labour  ? 
Can  the  curse  be  removed  from  machinery,  so  that 
the  worker  will  find  in  his  day's  work  some  of  the  same 
lift  and  satisfaction  which  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  finds 
in  writing  books,  who  told  me,  *'  I  have  fun  in  writing 
my  books  ?  "  These  questions  have  been  wrestled 
with  since  machinery  came  in.  Hate  of  the  machine 
was  voiced  by  Ruskin  and  Morris.  The  hope  of  a 
new  and  simpler  civilization  has  been  stated  by  Edwara 
Carpenter. 

The  answer  is  clear.  The  present  tendencies  of  all 
the  leading  nations  are  altogether  in  this  one  direction 
of  more  productive  power  through  machinery  driven 
by  skilled,  semi-skilled,  and  unskilled  workers.  Whether 
there  is  not  a  wholly  different  sort  of  life  possible, 
with  a  simpler  organization  and  richer  values  ;  whether 
the  old  England  of  hardy  seamen  and  quiet  farmers 
and  yeomen  was  not  a  more  admirable  place  than  the 
modern  city,  is  to  pose  an  academic  question  in  the 
face  of  an  obvious  overwhelming  tendency.  All  the 
nations  are  becoming  Americanized  and  Germanized. 
The  result  is  that  a  cheap,  hasty  product  in  unlimited 
quantity,  a  race  for  new  markets,  hustling  and  adver- 
tising are  in  command  of  modern  life.  All  that  is 
fragrant  and  choice  and  spacious  in  the  older  England 
is  being  caught  into  the  whirl  of  these  wheels.    This 


70  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tendency  is  summed  up  by  two  words  :^  some  call  it 
progress,  and  some  call  it  civilization.  It  is  the  judg- 
ment of  experienced  men  that  the  mass  of  the  people 
will  never  flock  back  to  agriculture  in  an  industrial 
country.  England  will  not  become  more  like  Russia. 
On  the  contrary,  Russia  will  become  more  like  England. 
The  machine  is  in  permanent  control  of  industrial  life. 
New  automatic  appliances  will  be  created  ;  new  sub- 
divisions of  process  will  be  devised. 

To  offset  this  dead  uniformity,  there  is  the  constant 
demand  for  new  goods.  No  sooner  has  the  manu- 
facture of  one  article  become  standardized  than  the 
demand  for  something  quite  new  arises.  It  is  only 
after  this  has  been  manufactured  for  a  considerable 
time  on  a  large  scale  that  its  manufacture  becomes 
standardized.  Meanwhile  there  is  much  skilled  work 
in  connection  with  it.  But  the  percentage  of  highly 
skilled  men  who  make  the  tools,  instal  them,  and 
direct  this  new  process  is  small.  There  remains  the 
vast  and  ever-increasing  mass  of  semi-skilled  workers 
who  perform  the  endlessly  repeated  processes.  The 
highly  skilled  man  finds  a  measure  of  satisfaction  in  the 
exercise  of  his  craft.  A  certain  few  machines  have  a 
delicacy  of  touch,  and  turn  out  a  beautiful  product, 
so  that  those  who  tend  them  receive  a  pleasure  in 
superintending  the  operation.  Seebohm  Rowntree 
told  me  of  a  machine  in  his  York  factory  which  lays 
down  three  colours  at  one  time  on  shiny  paper,  and 
does  it  with  a  finger  manipulation  which  seems  semi- 
human.  The  men  in  charge  of  this  process  thor- 
oughly enjoy  their  silent  partner.    Work  for  them  is 


LABOUR  71 

not  monotonous.  But  these  workers  of  skill  or  happy 
processes  are  few  in  number  compared  with  the  millions 
in  industry.  For  the  great  majority  of  workers  there 
is  little  joy  in  their  tasks  or  small  pride  in  the  products. 
The  worker  does  not  look  on  the  Mauretania  and  say 
to  himself,  "  I  built  her,"  because  he  tooled  the  rivets 
which  went  into  the  engines,  though  that  is  exactly  the 
thing  which  the  workman  did  say  eight  centuries  ago 
when  he  chiselled  his  masonic  mark  on  the  grey  stone 
of  the  cathedral.  To-day  he  seeks  for  an  escape  from 
the  monotony  of  a  weary  process  in  other  things  than 
in  the  work  itself.  He  regards  machine  labour  as  a 
drudgery.  The  series  of  motions  is  beginning  to  become 
standardized.  Experts  go  through  factories  distribut- 
ing cards  that  analyze  the  motions  required  to  convert 
raw  material  into  commodities.  The  worker  is  shown 
how  to  economize  effort,  how  to  make  fewer  strokes, 
and  how  to  shorten  the  stroke,  how  to  lessen  the  time 
of  production  from  four  hours  to  two  hours  and  thirty- 
three  minutes.  This  drift  toward  organization  and 
mechanical  efficiency  will  never  be  checked.  It  will 
gather  momentum.  -The  worker  himself  is  often  in 
favour  of  the  automatic  labour-saving  machine  if  his 
standard  of  living  is  maintained  and  raised,  as  against 
the  machine  that  calls  for  an  exercise  of  skill.  He 
prefers  to  save  his  vitality,  his  mental  reserve  forces, 
for  his  life  outside  the  factory,  for  the  creation  of 
social  values  in  his  neighbourhood  and  the  furtherance 
of  the  causes  that  interest  him. 

There  is  a  clever  and  aggressive  school  of  industrial- 
ists in  England  who  will  try  to  speed  up  industry 


72  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

without  winning  the  co-operation  of  the  worker. 
They  will  seek  to  instal  a  scientific  piece  rate  based 
on  time  study  of  factory  operations,  standardization 
of  equipment,  motion  study  of  the  actions  of  the 
worker  in  performing  a  piece  of  work,  instruction- 
cards  governing  every  bodily  movement  of  every 
worker,,  and  a  set  of  "  speeders-up  " — speed  boss, 
repair  boss,  shop  disciplinarian.  This  Americanizing 
of  industry  does  not  look  genial  to  the  British  work- 
man. He  will  not  accept  it  if  it  precedes  the  installa- 
tion of  work  councils ;  that  is,  boards  of  control,  in 
which  he  is  represented.  He  will  insist  on  his  share 
in  workshop  control.  He  will  obtain  it.  Then  indus- 
trial organization  will  proceed  along  the  inevitable 
lines  of  efficiency  and  scientific  management.  The 
further  this  tendency  goes,  the  wider  becomes  the 
separation  between  the  handful  of  skilled  workers 
who  shape  the  tools  and  set  them  up  and  the  mass  of 
unskilled  workers  directed  by  cards,  routing,  and 
scheduling. 

There  will  be  no  return  to  a  peaceful  peasant  folk. 
The  dreams  of  Ruskin  and  William  Morris  must  be 
laid  aside.  The  mechanical  processes  of  industry 
cannot  be  humanized ;  they  can  only  be  mitigated. 
The  relations  between  employer  and  employed  can  be 
humanized ;  the  Welfare  Department  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  humanizing  them.  Individual  employers 
have  long  struggled  to  humanize  them ;  but  this 
co-operation,  this  kindlier  atmosphere,  is  itself  only  a 
mitigation  of  the  conditions  of  work,  and  cannot 
alter  the  nature  of  the  work.    Not  in  the  work  itself, 


LABOUR  73 

but  in  the  creation  of  values  outside  the  working 
shift,  must  the  mass  of  people  find  their  escape  from 
monotony.  As  the  worker  receives  his  higher  wage 
and  his  margin  of  leisure,  he  must  by  individual  and 
collective  enterprise  lift  himself  from  the  machine- 
made  mediocrity  of  our  modern  world.  The  worker 
will  not  become  a  man  till  after  hours.  A  blessing 
can  be  wrung  from  the  machine  only  on  its  own  terms. 
It  is  a  comfort,  although  a  stern  comfort,  to  know  the 
direction  in  which  we  are  going.  Knowing  that, 
we  can  govern  the  pace  and  better  the  road.  Such 
is  the  answer  on  removing  the  curse  from  machinery. 

What  of  the  worker's  conditions  after  hours  ? 
The  solutions  of  almost  all  our  social  problems  are 
already  in  operation  locally  in  patches  in  parts  of 
Europe.  Denmark  has  solved  one  problem,  Sweden 
another,  and  Belgium  a  third.  It  needs  now  experts 
to  pool  these  solutions  into  a  programme  and  apply 
it  wholesale.  Transportation  and  housing  lie  at  the 
heart  of  the  problem  of  environment.  Where  the 
worker  lives,  and  in  what  sort  of  home  he  lives,  deter- 
mine the  conditions  that  surround  him  outside  his 
working  hours.  State  action  here  is  necessary,  and 
state  action  will  be  taken. 

For  two  years  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  war  a  com- 
mittee had  been  sitting  to  consider  land  and  housing 
reform,  and  had  brought  in  definite  and  far-reaching 
proposals.^  These  proposals  were  being  very  seriously 
considered  by  the  Government.  It  is  probable  that  a 
bill  covering  many  of  the  reforms  suggested  would 
^  See  Appendix  on  "  Land  "  and  "  Housing.'* 


74  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

have  been  introduced  but  for  the  war.  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  these  reforms  will  come  to  the 
front  as  soon  as  the  war  is  over.  One  of  these  measures 
deals  with  compulsory  town-planning.  Instead  of 
building  from  thirty  to  forty  houses  to  the  acre,  only 
thirteen  will  be  allowed.  This  means  that  every  work- 
man's house  will  have  its  decent  privacy,  its  bit  of 
garden.  Another  proposal  is  for  a  system  of  general 
transportation  by  means  of  light  railways.  Belgium 
has  thirty-eight  and  one-half  times  as  many  miles  of 
light  railway  in  proportion  to  her  total  area  as  Great 
Britain.  This  gives  a  network  of  cheap  transportation 
covering  the  entire  area  around  the  great  industrial 
centres.  I  used  to  ride  into  Ghent  from  Zele,  from 
Melle,  from  every  one  of  the  smaller  towns  outside  the 
city.  Wherever  I  have  stayed  in  Belgium,  whether 
at  Furnes,  Dixmude,  La  Panne,  Nieuport,  or  Ostend, 
the  whole  country-side  was  woven  with  tiny  steam 
railways,  carrying  passengers  for  a  few  sous.  This 
system  gives  easy  transportation  for  the  worker  from 
his  home  in  the  suburb  to  his  lathe  in  the  factory.^ 
It  means  that  he  can  live  on  a  little  land  and,  with  his 
family,  carry  on  light  gardening,  reducing  his  cost  of 
living,  with  an  occasional  sale  in  the  market.  The 
combination  of  the  two  measures, — town-planning  and 
cheap  transportation, — applied  to  England,  will  end 
the  slum  by  draining  it  dry,  and  by  substituting  a 
village  community  in  pleasant  surroundings.  It 
means  a  gradual,  but,  in  the  end,  complete,  remaking 
of  the  environment  for  the  workers.  And  an  environ- 
»  See  Appendix  on  "  Light  Railways." 


LABOUR  75 

mental  change  so  vast  will  recreate  the  physical  life 
of  the  nation. 

These  measures  are  nothing  but  simple  primitive 
justice.  They  are  merely  animal  rights.  They  do 
not  deal  with  the  basic  spiritual  needs  of  the  com- 
munity. Having  won  his  emancipation  from  poverty 
and  the  serf  conditions  of  industry,  the  worker  must 
face  the  intellectual  barrenness  of  his  life.  Through 
no  fault  of  his  own  he  is  poorly  fitted  for  the  role  he 
is  now  called  on  to  play.  He  is  uneducated,  unim- 
aginative, unequipped  to  create  the  values  in  life 
which  an  industrial  democracy  will  require  in  order 
to  survive  the  dreary  hours  of  monotonous  machine 
work,  however  shortened  and  however  highly  paid, 
and  the  increased  hours  of  leisure.  Failing  a  solution 
for  his  overplus  of  vitality  and  for  the  unemployment 
of  his  higher  faculties,  he  will  be  thrown  back  on 
rebellion  as  release  for  his  unfunctioning  energy. 

The  supreme  need  of  English  labour  is  wise  leader- 
ship. That  leadership  will  not  allow  this  new  energy, 
released  by  better  wages  and  shortened  hours,  to 
spend  itself  in  strife  and  rebelhon.  The  tragedy  of 
the  labour  movement  has  been  that  its  leaders  have 
often  been  sucked  up  by  the  Government,  becoming 
official  investigators,  parliamentarians,  committee- 
men. Or  the  skilled  intelligent  worker  has  passed 
over  into  the  ranks  of  the  employer.  The  succession 
of  lost  leaders  has  quenched  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
mass  of  the  people,  lessened  their  power  of  vision,  and 
made  them  cynical  of  lifting  themselves  to  a  full^  free 
life.    If  the  shoulders  of  the  people  are  used  by  their 


76  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

most  vital  representatives  only  to  be  climbed  upon 
into  positions  of  individual  prestige,  the  people  them- 
selves will  be  little  bettered  by  generating  men  of 
power.  The  labour  leader  must  find  his  career  inside 
his  class.  He  must  forego  the  easy  advantages  of  a 
thousand-pound  government  salary.  There  are  few 
wise  leaders  to-day  inside  the  ranks  of  the  workers. 

As  the  result,  the  immediately  practical  next  steps 
in  the  social  revolution  are  clearly  seen,  but  the  creative 
readjustment  that  will  make  England  into  a  free, 
liberal  community  is  not  seen.  The  worker  is  about 
to  share  control  of  his  working  conditions  with  the 
"  management.''  His  hours  will  be  shortened,  his 
wages  will  be  increased, — ^the  increase  has  already 
reached  about  one-third  of  the  industrial  population, — 
he  will  have  a  voice  in  workshop  conditions,  his 
physical  environment  in  his  leisure  hours  will  be 
ameliorated.  His  house  will  be  situated  in  a  decent 
community,  with  space  around  it  for  flowers  and 
'home  gardening.  Vocational  training  will  be  given 
to  his  children.  This  will  come  by  a  series  of  experi- 
mental measures,  beginning  with  part-time  employment 
in  industry  for  those  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
eighteen. 

But  a  greater  reconstruction  than  all  this  journey- 
man's work  is  needed.  If  the  workers  are  able  to 
develop  leaders  and  to  retain  them,  that  leadership 
will  concern  itself  in  part  with  the  cultural  life  of  the 
people.  There  is  no  great  future  for  labom:  except 
through  education.^  The  American  film,  the  public- 
1  See  Appendix  on  "  Workers'  Education.** 


LABOUR  ^'j 

house,  the  ha'penny  newspaper,  and  professional 
football  are  not  sufficient  of  themselves  to  make  a  new 
world.  If  English  labour  contents  itself  with  gains 
in  the  mechanic  and  physical  conditions  of  life,  the 
form  of  solution  will  crystallize  into  its  own  kind  of 
neo-Toryism.  The  same  meaningless  materialism  will 
continue  to  sterilize  and  wither  the  minds  of  men. 
Now  the  minds  of  oificials  and  experts,  workers  and 
employers,  are  malleable,  now  the  national  conscious- 
ness has  been  melted  into  hot  and  fluid  form.  Now 
is  the  time  to  shape  and  fuse  that  molten  mass. 

"  We  are  going  around  to-day  with  a  different  brain 
under  our  cap  from  the  brain  we  carried  three  years 
ago,"  a  leading  official  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers  said  to  me. 

This  is  true  of  him  and  his  fellow-workers,  true 
of  the  politicians,  and  true  of  the  employers.  Before 
that  brain  cools  to  a  new  case-bound  orthodoxy  it 
must  come  to  grips  with  larger  principles  of  social 
reconstruction  than  any  it  has  been  dealing  with  in 
trade-union  regulations.  There  is  no  discharge  in 
this  war.  We  need  a  new  community,  eager  and 
unsatisfied,  aiming  after -a  nobility  of  life  of  which 
the  modern  world  has  had  no  vision.  Let  labour  look 
to  its  task.  Time  presses.  In  five  years  England  will 
have  cooled  down,  and  the  impulse  of  the  war,  throw- 
ing old  values  into  the  furnace,  will  have  spent  itself. 
Men  will  reproduce  the  old  world,  with  its  barrenness 
of  materialism,  its  hunt  after  cheap  amusements, 
its  immense  mediocrity,  its  spiritual  deadness,  its 
nervous  restlessness,  its  suppressions  of  vitality,  and 


78  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

its  explosions  of  rebellion,  the  same  old  round  of  dirty 
little  intrigue,  because  there  will  be  no  great  purpose 
to  which  life  is  directed,  no  creative  dream  of  the 
people. 

And  in  command  of  -the  community  will  be  the 
same  old  gang  of  clever  politicians  feeding,  out  material- 
istic catchwords  of  "  Peace  and  prosperity,''  the  adroit 
editors  ministering  to  sensation  as  a  substitute  for 
creative  activity.     If  the  workers  dodge  and  postpone 
this  fundamental  point  in  their  emancipation,  they 
will  give  us  a  world  little  better  than  the  Victorian 
mess.    They  will  give  us  something  very  like  a  pros- 
perous American  industrial  city  such  as  Detroit.    The 
privileged  class,  with  its  neat  formulae  of  restricted 
education  and  established  Church,  has  long  lost  its 
control  of  the  community.    The  brief  reign  of  the 
captains  of  industry,  contributing  no  ideas  on  ethics 
and  social  relationship,  ended  in  August  of  1914.    Now 
comes  the  worker.     Let  him  better  the  management 
of  life.     Patient,  kindly,  slow,  very  loyal  to  the  man 
and  the  cause  in  which  he  believes,  the  English  worker 
is  the  greatest  democratic  force  in  the  world.     For 
our  own  salvation  we  must  call  on  him  to  use  his 
brain.    He  allowed  the  first  industrial  revolution  to 
swing  in  on  top  of  him  in  its  meanest  and  most  sordid 
form.    Now   that   he   takes   control  oi^  the   second 
industrial  revolution,  he  must  not  try  to  compress 
humanity  into  narrower  terms  than  those  which  the 
innumerable  varieties  of  the  human  spirit  have  always 
demanded.    The  masters  of  industry  tried  this,  and 
wrecked  their  world. 


LABOUR  79 

Into  the  forefront  of  their  immediate  programme 
of  action  the  workers  must  put  the  demand  for  an 
aboHtion  of  child  labour  and  for  the  creation  of  a 
general,  full-time  elementary  schooling  up  to  the  age 
of  sixteen  years.^  There  must  be  secondary  and 
continuation  schools  for  all  promising  pupils  up  to  the 
age  of  eighteen.  .There  must  be  a  larger  number  of 
universities,  and  a  democratization  of  all  the  uni- 
versities. The  best  men  among  the  workers  must  be 
as  thoroughly  equipped  in  modern  science,  economics, 
and  sociology  as  the  governing  class  used  to  be  in  the 
humanities.  The  hope  of  an  enlightened  democracy 
lies  in  the  general  extension  of  state  education  and 
in  the  expansion  of  individual  initiative  in  such 
experiments  for  adults  as  the  Workers'  Educational 
Association. 

But  the  workers  must  insist  that  the  education  shall 
not  be  limited  to  vocational  training,  to  science  of 
research  and  application,  to  the  imparting  of  facts. 
Education  must  give  an  interpretation  of  life.  It 
must  construct  and  impart  a  system  of  ethics  fitted 
to  our  time.  A  living  wage  is  no  answer  to  such  a 
tangle  as  that  of  sex  ;  it  is  no  answer  to  the  concerns 
of  empire  and  the  treatment  of  the  coloured  races. 
These  are  ethical  matters,  demanding  hard  thinking 
and  new  interpretations  of  old  values.  There  are  a 
dozen  problems  clamouring  for  an  answer,  and  on  no 
one  of  them  is  there  an  adequate  body  of  recorded 
facts,  with  the  tendencies  deduced  from  them.  Appar- 
ently, everything  is  to  be  solved  by  plunging  bodily 
*  See  Appendi.^  "  Mone)^  or  Education." 


8o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

into  activity  and  letting  results  come.  What  one 
feels  the  absence  of  in  the  labour  movement  is  funda- 
mental brain-work.  Here  are  new  processes  being 
developed,  new  areas  opened,  a  revolutionary  shifting 
of  the  directive  control  of  the  modern  world  from  the 
little  historic  group  of  captains  to  the  vast  army  of  the 
people  themselves ;  and  yet  there  is  no  realization 
that  so  mighty  a  transfer  of  forces  calls  for  a  philosophy 
and  ethics  of  its  own.  If  the  workers  fail  us  in  this, 
the  patient  old-time  spirit  will  brush  aside  their  little 
artificial  structure  like  an  empty  shell  and  begin 
building  again. 

The  whole  range  of  moral  problems  has  been  left 
out  of  the  reckoning.  Changed  conditions  have 
resulted  in  an  entire  alteration  of  human  relationship  ; 
but  no  one  has  stated  the  new  ethics  that  will  give 
guidance  to  the  plain  man's  desire  for  a  free,  human, 
liberal  life  and  for  an  answer  to  the  meaning  of  life. 
The  cry  of  Dostoyevsky  still  lifts  itself  in  our  night : 
"  Surely  I  haven't  suffered  simply  that  I,  my  crimes, 
and  my  sufferings  may  manure  the  soil  of  the  future 
harmony  for  somebody  else.  I  want  to  be  there  when 
every  one  suddenly  understands  what  it  has  all  been 
for.  All  the  religions  of  the  world  are  built  on  this 
longing,  and  I  am  a  believer." 

What  interpretation  of  modern  life  have  we  had  ? 
Not  one.  Frederick  Taylor  tells  us  to  bind  every 
thrust  of  the  hand,  every  throb  of  the  brain,  into  an 
iron  scheme  of  regularity  ;  Tolstoy  tells  us  to  jump  out 
of  the  system  altogether.  But  neither  they  nor  our 
other  literary  and  scientific  prophets  have  faced  all 


LABOUR  8i 

the  facts  resolutely  and  thought  thek  way  through  to 
a  synthesis.  Neither  peasant  mysticism  nor  scientific 
management  will  put  greatness  into  the  lives  that 
ninety  out  of  every  hundred  obscure  persons  must 
live.  We  cannot  hope  for  any  saving  word  from  the 
clever  manipulators  who  cut  the  cost  of  production, 
nor  from  isolated  artists,  high  above  the  combat. 
The  word  must  come  from  the  worker  who,  refusing 
to  be  factory-bound,  turns  from  his  machine  after 
extracting  a  living  wage  and  becomes  an  interpreter 
for  his  fellows.  We  wait  for  this  word.  It  will  be 
a  word  made  flesh,  and  it  will  dwell  among  us.  It  will 
not  utter  itself  in  handicraft  communities  nor  on  the 
lonely  farm.  It  will  neither  flinch  from  the  immutable 
economic  basis  of  life  nor  try  to  feed  the  human  spirit 
on  applied  science  and  novel  devices  of  speeding-up 
alone.     It  will  be  a  word  of  faith. 

Modern  essayists  write  retrospectively  of  the  "  age 
of  faith  "  as  if  faith  was  possible  only  among  naive 
men  in  an  age  of  mental  darkness.  But  faith  is  the 
product  of  a  vitality  that  is  fully  expressed.  It  has, 
therefore,  always  been  the  possession  of  vital  and 
effectual  men,  and  is  found  ahke  in  Cromwell  and 
Walt  Whitman.  It  is  as  inevitably  the  sanction 
of  wholesome  living  as  joy  is  the  accompaniment 
and  sanction  of  the  creative  impulse  in  love  and  art. 
It  is  not  a  bHnd  behef  in  what  is  not  true.  Faith  is 
the  expression  of  a  behef  in  life.  The  last  century  has 
been  faithless  not  because  it  was  dynamic  and  enlight- 
ened, but  because  it  was  darkened  and  weary. 
Democracy,  with  all  its  striving,  has  produced  thus 


82  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

far  only  three  men  of  genius,  Mazzini,  Lincoln,  and 
Walt  Whitman,  and  one  of  them  said  : 

Give  me,  give  him  or  her  I  love  this  quenchless  faith. 

Is  it  a  dream  ? 

Nay,  but  the  lack  of  it  the  dream, 

And  failing  it  life's  lore  and  weaMi  a  dream, 

And  all  the  world  a  dream. 

We  moderns  have  side-stepped  these  fundamental 
questions  of  a  spiritual  basis  for  existence  because 
they  troubled  our  surface  life.  Meanwhile  we  heaped 
up  the  immeasurable  inner  forces  of  unanswered 
desires,  unexpended  spiritual  vitality,  and  frustrated 
impulses  until  they  finally  came  roaring  through  and 
over  swept  Europe. 

There  was  a  time  when  religion  answered  this  need 
of  the  race  for  a  vital  expression.  It  still  answers  the 
need  of  a  part  of  the  community.  There  are  liberal 
tendencies  inside  the  church  making  for  a  faith  which 
does  not  offend  men's  intellects  and  does  not  preach 
submission  and  renunciation.  A  small,  but  influential, 
group  of  workers  still  govern  their  lives  by  religious 
faith.  But  religion  in  any  organized  form,  in  any 
terms  that  are  concrete  and  susceptible  of  measure- 
ment and  analysis,  has  ceased  to  exist  for  the  mass 
of  the  people.  The  old  rehgious  penalties  and  sanc- 
tions have  been  undermined  by  modern  thought.  Our 
new,  vague,  social  consciousness  has  failed  as  yet  to 
develop  any  stringent  system  of  ethics  of  its  own, 
any  code  of  relationship  which  is  binding.  In  labour 
a  class  war,  in  sex  a  mediccval  suppression,  were  the 
extent  of  present-day  vision  up  to  the  hour  of  the  war. 


LABOUR  83 

For  many  generations  the  life  of  spiritual  aspiration 
has  been  starved.  There  is  no  longer  any  appeal  made 
to  it.  Our  development  is  altogether  in  the  direction 
of  a  materialistic  conception  of  Hfe,  by  legislation  to 
conquer  poverty,  by  machinery  to  achieve  happiness. 
It  looks  on  organization  as  the  sole  method  of  pro- 
gress, efficiency  as  the  end  of  being,  science  as  answer- 
ing all  the  needs  of  the  human  consciousness,  and 
scientifically  directed  force  as  the  final  master  of  human 
affairs.  It  is  not  that  the  young  or  the  poor  go  wrong, 
but  that  we  all  go  wrong  in  our  commercial  civiliza- 
tion. We  all  live  for  sensation,  for  a  visible  standard 
of  success  in  terms  of  sense-pleasures.  To  make  life 
easy,  to  escape  the  old  perils  and  hardships,  the  old 
disciplines  and  responsibilities,  has  become  the  chief 
aim  of  the  modern  community. 

England  must  make  imperious  demands  of  the  new 
democracy.  We  refuse  to  rest  satisfied  with  their 
improved  housing,  easier  transportation,  better  working 
conditions.  These  are  only  the  means  to  worthy 
living.  They  do  not  deal  with  the  business  of  living 
itself.  If  the  workers  of  England  can  create  a  com- 
munity that  "  looks  good,"  the  example  will  be 
irresistible,  and  civilization  will  respond  to  it  in  every 
nation.  It  is  only  in  the  creation  of  such  communities, 
where  the  life  of  peace  is  a  thing  of  joy,  that  we  can 
look  for  the  end  of  wars.  But  in  their  community 
they  must  fmd  a  place  for  the  life  of  the  spirit,  for  faith, 
for  the  finer  values  of  nationality,  for  the  rewards  of 
merit,  energy,  and  initiative.  Because  initiative  in 
the   old   industrial   serfdom   only   bound   them   the 


84  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES, 

tighter  to  the  management,  they  have  practised  "  ca' 
canny."  But  when  they  take  control,  failure  in 
initiative  will  cut  the  taproot  and  spinal  nerve  of  their 
productivity,  their  prosperity,  and  final  well-being. 
They  are  called  on  for  a  wholly  other  set  of  qualities 
than  those  which  they  have  developed  under  the 
stresses  of  wage  conflict.  Every  situation  now 
demands  a  different  reaction  from  the  one  produced 
when  a  profiteering  employer  pulled  the  strings. 
Every  new  invention,  every  automatic  machine,  every 
shortened  process,  every  device  for  directing  muscular 
force  that  will  cut  the  cost  of  production,  is  working 
for  their  benefit.  But  their  newly  used  initiative 
must  carry  further  than  the  workshop.  It  must 
wreak  itself  on  the  community,  and  devise  a  wisdom 
of  life,  fulfilling  the  inextinguishable  longing  of  the 
human  heart,  which  has  gone  unanswered  in  recent 
years  till  it  found  its  answer  in  world  war. 

Unquestionably  in  the  last  fifty  years  the  labour 
movement,  reacting  vigorously  against  the  defences 
of  privilege  projected,  often  unconsciously,  by  organ- 
ized religion  and  class  education,  has  made  a  drive 
against  the  life  of  the  mind  and  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
Itself  a  vital  movement,  fighting  for  freedom  and 
justice,  it  has  included  among  its  enemies  forces  which 
are  themselves  the  very  source  of  freedom  and  justice. 
It  has  done  this  because  these  forces  had  created  institu- 
tions, such  as  the  established  church  and  the  great 
universities,  which  had  lagged  in  the  movement  toward 
continuing  emancipation.  But  labour  cannot  carry 
on  a  war  with  intelligence  and  spirituality  without 


LABOUR  85 

in  the  end  being  burned  up  by  their  fine  violet  ray. 
No  philosophy  of  income  will  survive  against  the  higher 
demands  of  the  human  spirit.     Labour  must  be  wilHng 
to   work   with  these   victorious   forces,   not   against 
them.    In  scorning  the  free  play  of  intellect  in  the 
realms  of  art  and  pure  research,  and  in  scorning  the 
efforts  of  the  spirit  to  find  an  interpretation  of  life 
leading  to  spiritual  peace,  the  labour  movement  has 
hardened  and  strengthened  the  very  materialism  which 
is  its  own  worst  enemy.    If  labour  holds  that  it  is  too 
busy  with  its  immediate  emancipation  to  trouble  with 
"  theoretical  considerations,"  it  will  be  in  the  position 
of  an  army  which  allows  itself  to  be  outflanked  and 
surrounded  because  it   is   concentrated   on  a   drive 
at  the  centre.    This  is  the  gravest  issue  which  labour 
faces.    It  has  won  its  fight  for  a  decent  standard  of 
living  and  for  a  measure  of  control  in  industry,  but 
it  will  certainly  lose  the  future  if  it  continues  to  regard 
the  writer,  artist,  and  ethical  teacher  as  parasites,  and 
if  it  continues  to  see  them  as  idlers  who  are  living 
indolently  on  the  hard  work  of  better  men.    The  labour 
movement  is  itself  largely  the  product  of  a  few  thinkers, 
unconnected  with  organization,  members  of  no  party. 
It  will  destroy  its  own  sources  of  supply  and  will 
become  dried  up  if  it  discourages  fresh  liberations 
inside  its  own  organism.    Its  one  outlet  into  the 
future  is  its  capacity  for  throwing  out  experiments 
in  the  creation  of  new  varieties,  like  a  plant.    It  must 
distrust  its  own  orthodoxy  and  status  quo,  its   own 
accepted  formulae  and  popular  teachers,  as  it  distrusts 
the  utterances  of  bishops  and  class-bound  captains  of 


86  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

industry.  Only  so  will  it  manifest  a  principle  of 
vitality  charged  with  unfailing  impulses.  Falling 
short  in  this,  it  will  betray  itself  as  only  a  single  un- 
related, short-lived  impulse,  clothing  itself  in  one  more 
limited  institution,  which  will  become  its  tomb.  The 
worker  must  not  only  tolerate  radical  interpretative 
thinking  outside  his  own  ranks  ;  he  must  welcome  it 
among  his  fellows.  The  initiative  of  his  leisure  hours 
must  lead  out  into  regions  of  which  he  has  been  shy 
and  suspicious.  He  must  develop  his  own  teachers  and 
prophets  and  artists.  The  men  of  Ghent  had  already 
done  a  little  of  this  inside  their  co-operative  com- 
munity. The  English  worker  must  be  as  glad  of  his 
sculptor  and  his  poet  as  he  is  of  his  labour  leader. 
By  the  creative  use  of  his  leisure  he  will  justify  his 
control  over  the  coming  age.  In  place  of  smart 
revues  and  sentimental  plays  perhaps  he  will  give  us 
drama,  which  has  been  an  unused  literary  form  for  three 
centuries,  worthy  of  revival. 

For  one  hundred  years  the  world  has  been  silent 
on  the  meaning  of  life.  The  masters  were  busy  with 
their  new  devices  to  squeeze  profits,  and  the  workers 
were  too  heavy  with  their  toil  to  think  at  all.  But 
by  these  unseen  moral  compulsions,  by  the  values  w^e 
create,  every  "  free  '*  act  of  our  hfe  is  governed.  Every- 
thing we  say  and  do  is  shot  through  with  the  colour 
and  accent  of  our  conception  of  life. 

If  life  is  "  playing  the  game,"  what  is  the  game, 
and  what  are  the  rules  ?  If  life  consists  in  making 
good,  what  is  the  good  we  are  making,  and  what  is  the 
method  of  the  making  ?    If  life  is  noblesse  oblige. 


LABOUR  d>y 

who  are  the  elite,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  their 
obhgation  ? 

The  Christian  ethics,  for  instance,  have  never  been 
tried.  Do  the  workers  intend  to  attempt  them  ? 
Will  they  state  them  for  us  in  modern  terms  ?  What 
precisely  is  our  moral  foundation  to-day  ?  What  is 
the  basis  of  our  happiness  and  virtue  ? 

The  suppression  of  the  human  spirit,  the  soul, — 
that  congeries  of  impulse,  desires,  and  memories, — ^has 
gone  on  under  the  industrial  revolution  with  its  applied 
science,  its  emphasis  on  reaHsm,  and  its  mechanical 
detail.  How  faintly  the  life  of  industry  has  taken  hold 
of  the  human  spirit  was  revealed  by  the  great  burst  of 
released  force  that  broke  through  with  the  war.  The 
nations  had  been  gathering  steam  for  Several  genera- 
tions till  they  blew  the  lid  off.  All  the  time  that  the 
hands  were  busy  in  repetitive  processes  the  secret 
subconscious  mind  was  generating  its  own  forces. 
Suddenly  men  saw  a  release  from  modern  life,  an 
escape  from  the  machine,  and  a  substitute  for  the 
materialistic  conception  of  existence,  and  seven  nations 
went  out  with  faith  in  their  hearts.  The  workers 
themselves  were  among  the  first  to  go,  not  because 
they  were  herded  and  conscripted,  but  because  adven- 
ture and  change  and  faith  had  returned  to  a  very  flat 
world.  There  came  an  almost  universal  exultation 
that  at  last  there  was  something  in  which  to  believe, 
something  impersonal  and  vast  on  which  the  primal 
forces  of  emotion  could  discharge  themselves.  The 
old  industrial  order  received  its  sentence  then ;  but 
unless  the  new  industrial  democracy  wins  for  us  a 


88  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

creative  peace,  it,  too,  is  doomed.  It  must  give  us  an 
interpretation  of  life  which  commends  itself  to  our 
nobler  faculties  and  not  alone  to  our  body  needs,  or 
men  will  again  turn  themselves  to  killing  in  order  to 
escape  the  greensickness  of  materialistic  peace. 

Reasonable  Satisfaction 

One  of  the  men  in  England  who  has  a  right  to  speak  on  the 
principles  of  reconstruction  is  A.  E.  Zimmern.  He  is  known  to 
scholars  as  the  author  of  "  The  Greek  Commonwealth."  He  is 
known  to  EngUsh  labour  as  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  Workers ! 
Educational  Association.  He  has  been  a  member  of  the  Recon- 
struction Committee  for  the  British  Government.  What  he  and 
his  group  believe  is  rather  likely  to  influence  the  direction  of  tend- 
ency in  the  social  movement,  and  some  of  their  belief  will  probably 
be  enacted  into  law.  He  has  very  courteously  given  me  this  state- 
ment of  his  views  on  the  problems  of  "  The  Pioneers." 

My  own  view  about  the  campaign  for  Germanizing 
England  industrially  is  that  it  can't  be  done.  The 
Englishman  has  a  power  of  passive  resistance  equal 
to  that  of  no  one  else  in  the  world  except  it  be  the  Turk. 
You  can't  drive  him.  German  education  would 
be  impossible  here  because  the  English  schoolboy 
would  not  stand  it.  The  same  is  true  all  round,  and 
it  is  this  tough  and  conservative  individualism  which 
has  been  the  great  obstacle  to  the  swift  adaptations 
which  the  war  has  made  necessary.  That  being  so, 
one  is  thrown  back,  when  one  looks  for  directions  of 
reform,  upon  the  alternative  policy  of  making  the 
worlanan  think  the  work  worth  while.  This  brings 
one  to  the  problem  of  ''joy  in  work  "  and  to  the 
ideas  and  plans  of  Ruskin  and  Morris. 

Ruskin  and  Morris  were  in  many  respects  fooHsh 


LABOUR  89 

medievalists,  but  I  always  think  that  in  their  insist- 
ence that  the  work  itself,  not  wages  or  ownership  or 
anything  else,  was  the  central  problem,  they  were  in 
the  true  English  tradition.  I  think  the  future  his- 
torian of  the.  English  working-class  movement  will 
regard  it  as  a  calamity  that  they  never  really  converted 
the  trade-union  movement  to  take  their  ideas  seriously 
and  make  them  practical.  Instead,  the  trade-unionists 
were  gradually  led  astray  (as  Morris  was,  too),  by  the 
invasion  of  Marxian  ideas  from  Germany,  which  has 
put  the  whole  labour  movement  in  a  false  position 
for  a  generation  ;  for  it  has  made  the  most  independent 
section  of  the  most  individualistic  people  in  the  world 
confess  the  creed  of  Socialism  without  knowing  what 
it  is,  with  the  odd  result  that  the  Independent  Labour 
party,  which  introduced  Socialism  into  the  labour 
movement  in  the  late  eighties,  is  now  engaged  in  the 
far  more  congenial  task  of  combating  state  supremacy* 

However,  this  is  all  a  digression  to  explain  why  I 
think  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  new  orientation  of  labour 
thought  on  the  lines  of  the  Ruskin-Morris  tradition. 

I  think  the  conception  of  "joy  in  work''  needs 
careful  analysis.  I  am  sure  that  "  interest "  isn't 
the  real  thing  we  must  aim  at.  The  craftsman's 
joy  in  its  pure  form  is  rare,  and  the  fruit  of  solitude  and 
self-discipline.  The  English  are  not  a  race  of  artists. 
They  are  a  race  of  practical,  cheerful,  sociable,  indus- 
trious people  with  a  high  general  average  of  ability. 
Such  people  do  not  aspire  to  joy;  what  they  want 
is  to  get  reasonable  satisfaction  out  of  their  daily  work, 
and  the  social  atmosphere  in  which  they  work  is  perhaps 


90  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  chief  natural  source  of  that  satisfaction.  That  is 
why  I  beHeve  that  all  these  expedients  of  shop  com- 
mittees, etc.,  do  really  go  far  to  touch  the  root  of  the 
matter. 

There  is  another  point,  which  I  think  is  very  import- 
ant, and  that  is  better  arrangements  regarding  the 
choice  of  employment.  I  believe  that  if,  without  any 
other  changes  at  all,  you  could  simply  put  all' mis- 
placed square  pegs  into  square  holes  and  vice  versa, 
you  would  do  an  enormous  amount  to  increase  "  satis- 
faction.'' This  is  a  problem  of  keeping  the  working- 
class  child  at  school  long  enough  to  be  able  to  discover 
its  special  bent,  and  then  providing  skilled  vocational 
guidance.  A  lot  of  work  has  been  done  on  these  lines 
by  Thorndike,  Bloomfield,  and  others  in  the  United 
States,  and  we  could  do  vastly  more  here. 

I  think  monotony  should  be  met  by  regular  arrange- 
ments for  varying  the  job.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of 
experiment  to  be  done  on  these  lines.  I  expect  you 
would  find  that  the  East-Enders  who  go  hopping  in 
Kent  work  all  the  better  for  it  afterward. 

Leisure,  of  course,  is  being  dealt  with  by  the  Workers' 
Educational  Association,  but  I  think  we  are  only  at 
the  beginning  of  the  communal  provision  of  leisure 
and  of  real  education  for  the  adult  citizen.  This  is 
one  of  the  main  functions  of  a  university  in  a  modern 
community,  and  its  buildings  ought  to  be  systemati- 
cally used  for  such  purposes  in  vacation  time.  In  fact, 
the  educational  plant,  like  the  factory  plant,  ought 
never  to  be  idle. 

This  brings  me  to  the  poet  and  the  artist.    I  have 


LABOUR  91 

thought  a  good  deal  about  their  absence,  because 
I  have  the  example  of  Athens  constantly  in  my  mind. 
I  think  the  main  reasons  are  two  : 

(i)  That  the  modern  world  is  too  noisy  and  con- 
fused. We  need  absolutely  to  cultivate  quiet.  The 
telephone,  for  instance,  is  a  devil's  invention  for 
heaving  up  delicate  growths  of  thought  by  the  roots. 
Most  of  our  possible  modern  poets  are  journalists  ; 
that  is,  they  never  keep  their  poetry  in  till  it  is  mature. 
This  is  specially  true  in  the  United  States,  which  is  a 
land  overflowing  with  imagination  and  creative  feeling, 
which  hardly  ever  materiahzes  in  enduring  literary 
forms. 

(2)  We  lose  a  huge  amount  of  our  artistic  and  poetic 
material  by  our  neglect  of  education  ih  adolescence. 
The  reasons  why  modern  town  life  has  not  produced 
its  Robert  Burns  is  that  the  modern  industrial  system 
crushes  men's  spirit  in  adolescence  and  drives  them 
to  drink  or  worse,  from  which  they  emerge,  if  at  all, 
incapable  of  the  biggest  work. 

I  don't  think  we  can  ever  hope  to  reform  our  social 
system  without  the  artist's  help,  because  only  the 
artists  can  give  our  industrial  workers  a  standard. 
Democracy  in  industry  is  all  very  well  up  to  a  point, 
but  masons  and  bricklayers  are  no  more  qualified  to 
design  a  house  than  navvies  are  to  decide  on  how  a 
bridge  is  to  be  built.  The  bridge  will  tumble  and  the 
house  will  be  ugly.  This'  is  the  fallacy  of  the  arts  and 
crafts  movement,  which  seems  to  assume  that  hard 
work,  creatiye  energy,  and  joy  can  produce  beauty. 
But  beauty  has  laws  as  sure  as  the  laws  of  dynamics. 


92  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  only  combination  of  natural  endowment  and  hard 
thinking  can  discover  them.  The  artist  is  before  all 
things  a  scholar.  To  be  a  painter  or  an  architect  is 
to  be  at  school  and  to  have  a  school,  as  the  Italians 
knew.  But  scholars  are  rare.  Let  us  find  those  we 
have,  and  honour  them  and  listen  to  them ;  but  do 
not  let  us  flatter  the  workman  by  telling  him  he  is 
equally  competent  to  make  their  decisions,  or  that  he 
can  experience  the  same  creative  and  reflective  joy. 


CHAPTER   III 
WOMEN 

EMANCIPATION 


« 


To-day  women  are  facing  the  same  hard  fight  for 
political  recognition  and  industrial  status  that  men 
faced  one  hundred  years  ago.  They  are  taxed  without 
being  represented ;  they  are  worked  without  being 
properly  paid.  No  phrase  sums  up  the  measure  of 
their  desires,  for  the  desire  to  be  free  is  larger  than  any 
policy,  and  creates  its  programme  in  action.  With 
each  gain  the  desire  grows  greater  and  more  definite, 
and  extends  the  programme  commensurate  with  its 
own  sense  of  life.  At  no  moment  and  at  no  point 
can  it  be  codified,  because  it  is  under  way.  And  this 
desire,  propelling  the  woman's  movement,  is  only  one 
projection  of  a  deep  and  potent  instinct  that  is  operat- 
ing through  men  and  women,  through  nations  and 
classes.  Already  it  has  set  Europe  on  fire.  It  may 
yet  sweep  the  world.  This  impulse  of  creative  force 
has  welled  up  from  the  depths  of  life  and  gone  out  in 
many  directions.  As  nationality,  it  has  stirred  France 
and  Poland  and  Croatia.  It  has  seethed  through  the 
colonies  and  turned  the  empire  into  the  British  Com- 
monwealth.   It  has  touched  the  labour  movement 

93 


94  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

into  a  revolutionary  force.  I  saw  the  drive  at  Ypres. 
I  circled  Verdun  and  heard  those  guns.  I  have  seen 
three  hundred  thousand  men  massed  in  a  small  area, 
and  the  regiments  of  reHef  swinging  up  the  dusty  road. 
But  I  hear  other  marching  feet  than  those,  and  I  know 
that  this  war  is  a  little  thing  compared  with  what  the 
silent  millions  are  soon  to  be  doing  to  this  old,^arth. 
The  hSimmers  of  their  reconstruction  will  make  louder 
thunder  than  any  of  Picardy.  The  world  is  struggling 
to  set  itself  free,  and  there  has  been  no  such  stirring 
in  a  century.  This  movement  towards  freedom  may 
be  shackled  and  turned  to  base  uses,  like  the  forces 
liberated  by  the  French  Revolution  ;  but  the  vigour 
and  contagion  of  the  movement  are  as  yet  beyond 
the  control  of  any  authority,  and  may  achieve  a  great 
reconstruction  before  they  die  away. 

This  creative  impulse  the  women  of  to-day  share 
with  the  miners  of  South  Wales  and  the  poets  and 
peasants  of  Ireland.  The  *'  woman  question "  has 
been  segregated  as  if  it  were  a  unique  and  unrelated 
problem  which  could  be  handled  in  a  water-tight 
compartment.  The  purpose  of  the  woman's  move- 
ment, both  trade-union  and  suffrage,  is  to  integrate 
the  "  woman  question  "  with  the  general  movement 
toward  democratic  control.  The  charge  has  been 
made  that  women  lack  the  capacity  for  organization, 
that  they  do  not  possess  the  native  and  instinctive 
cohesion  that  finds  expression  in  trade-unions.  The 
answer  of  their  leaders  is  that  absence  of  organization 
is  a  characteristic  of  unskilled,  ill-paid,  and  casual 
labour,  whether  that  labour  is  male  or  female.    Wliere 


WOMEN  95 

women  have  been  admitted  to  skilled  trades,  as  in  the 
cotton  industry,  they  have  formed  powerful  unions 
and  kept  step  with  the  men.  Failure  to  organize  is 
not  a  failure  of  sex.  It  is  a  matter  of  training,  oppor- 
tunity, and  wages.  As  fast  as  skilled  trades  are 
thrown  open,  as  fast  as  men's  trade-unions  unbolt 
the  door,  as  fast  as  a  living  wage  is  paid,  women 
respond  with  the  same  qualities  of  cohesion,  the  same 
faculty  of  organization,  the  same  understanding  of 
the  principle  of  democratic  control,  that  men  have 
revealed. 

But  to  be  granted  this  chance  to  display  capacity 
for  self-government  in  industry  the  vote  is  necessary. 
The  vote  is  necessary  because  wages  tend  to  slide  down 
when  the  worker  is  impotent  politically.  The  woman 
worker  is  unable  to  bring  pressure  on  employers  and 
the  ^  Government  to  enforce  her  demands.  As  an 
instance,  the  leaders  point  to  the  underpayment  which 
was  given  for  over  two  years  to  many  thousands  of 
women  in  Government-controlled  establishments.  Even 
in  a  period  of  high  wages,  women  workers  in  large 
numbers  have  been  existing  on  a  weekly  return  of 
ten  to  sixteen  shillings.  A  living  wage  is  at  least  a 
pound  a  week,  and  even  that  is  severely  low  at  the 
present  prices.^  Granting  the  (Jifference  in  cost  of 
living  between  America  and  England,  which  is  ceasing 
to  be  a  wide  difference,  the  recent  decision  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  a  minimum  wage  of  $8.50  a  week  for  the 

1  Estimates  given  me  by  trade  union  officials  and  welfare  workers 
differ.  See  "  The  Cost  of  Food  for  an  Adult  Woman,"  by  Clara 
Collet,  and  "  Round  About  a  Pound  a  V^'^eek,"  by  Mrs.  Pember 
Reeves. 


96  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

woman  shop  assistant  gives  a  better  standard  of  living 
than  the  British  Government  minimum.  To  obtain 
such  a  minimum  in  the  sweated  industries  the  women 
say  they  require  the  vote  as  a  method  of  bringing 
pressure  on  the  Government. 

But  they  also  say  they  must  have  the  vote  in  order 
to  win  the  full  co-operation  of  the  men's  trade-unions. 
Actually,  male  labour  will  make  a  serious  blunder 
if  it  excludes  women  from  membership  in  trade- 
unions,  because,  in  place  of  an  ally,  it  will  have  an 
unwilling  enemy  who  will  inevitably  beat  down  the 
wage-scale.  But  to  make  the  men  see  the  desirability 
of  including  women  in  the  fight  for  the  high  standard 
of  living,  the  women  must  come  with  political  power 
in  their  hands.  Without  the  vote,  the  men  regard 
them  as  a  multitude  of  claimants,  doubling  the  cost  of 
organization,  doubling  the  number  of  workers,  without 
contributing  to  the  man's  strength.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  male  trade-unions  to 
welcome  women  workers  even  if  they  remain  unen- 
franchised. It  is  to  their  interest  because,  if  women 
remain  as  a  helot  class,  underpaid,  unorganized,  they 
will  be  used  to  scab  the  labour  market.  The  men's 
trade-unions  will  be  swamped  by  this  new  labour 
supply,  unprotected  and  competing  for  jobs.  To 
save  reconstruction  from  such  mistakes,  the  women 
wish  the  vote  so  that  they  will  be  permitted  to  join 
male  labour  in  the  common  fight.  The  reconstruction 
which  is  under  way,  much  of  it  the  blind  operation  of 
natural  forces,  some  of  it  the  careful  programme  of 
industrial  thinkers,  will  be  incomplete  if  women  are 


WOMEN  97 

omitted  from  the  trade-unions'  councils  and  the  par- 
Hamentary  committees. 

Great  Britain  and  Germany  were  the  two  nations 
of  the  modern  world  where  the  male  mind  was  in  full 
control  of  the  channels  of  influence  before  the  war. 
That  woman's  fields  of  activity  were  church,  children, 
and  kitchen  was  believed  in  England  as  in  Prussia. 
The  average  man  thought  woman  a  slightly  inferior 
creature,  politically  incompetent,  industrially  in- 
capable, mentally  ill  endowed.  Unconsciously,  he 
has  wished  to  keep  her  in  the  ranks  of  an  unrepre- 
sented, exploited,  and  casual-labour  class.  It  has 
required  an  immense  force  of  concentrated  will,  a 
widespread  organization,  and  a  constantly  exerted 
pressure  of  what  Mr.  Lloyd  George  calls  "  strident 
nagging  '*  for  woman  to  win  the  powerful,  but  now 
very  delicately  balanced,  position  which  she  holds 
in  the  industrial  world.  She  is  seeking  to  win  status. 
Status,  or  "  standing,"  is  that  position  which  a  person 
or  a  class  holds  because  it  is  able  to  enforce  its  claims 
by  political  and  economic  power.  Influence,  whether 
silent,  unconscious,  or  indirect,  is  non-existent  except 
as  the  person  or  class  possesses  a  measure  of  democratic 
control  over  the  conditions  of  life. 

This  fight  for  recognition  is  in  competent  hands. 
Mary  MacArthur,  Maude  Royden,  Mrs.  Fawcett,  Mrs. 
Despard,  Mrs.  Pember  Reeves,  Rebecca  West,  Susan 
Lawrence,  Marion  Phillips,  Margaret  Bondfield, 
Llewelyn  Davies,  Mrs.  Philip  Snowden,  Mrs.  Sidney 
Webb,  Mrs.  Bosanquet,  Miss  Atkinson,  Sylvia  Pank- 
hurst,  Eleanor  Rathbone,  Clementina  Black,  and  a  dozen 

G 


98  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

more  leaders  are  women  of  intelligence  and  sanity. 
They  are  making  careful  studies  of  industrial  and 
social  conditions.  They  are  "  next-step  "  reformers, 
basing  their  programme  of  action  on  intensive  investiga- 
tion, analysis,  and  diagnosis. 

The  woman's  movement  is  fighting  a  low-wage 
scale.  It  is  fighting  bad-shop  conditions  and  bad- 
home  conditions.  1  It  is  concerned  with  woman  as  an 
industrial  worker  and  as  a  mother.  It  has  a  pro- 
gramme of  reform  that  deals  with  woman  in  each  of 
her  two  capacities.  It  is  fighting  to  free  the  narrow, 
suppressed,  middle-class  woman,  to  give  her  a  good 
life  of  self-expression.  It  is  fighting  to  enable  high- 
powered,  well-educated  women  to  count  in  the  life  of 
the  community,  to  win  for  them  fuller  representation 
at  the  universities,  a  larger  measure  of  influence  in 
civil  service "  and  in  Government  committees  concerned 
with  industrial  conditions  and  community  welfare. 
Suffrage  and  trade-unions  are  two  of  the  instruments 
with  which  to  achieve  status  through  organization. 

In  a  matter  so  vast  and  various  as  the  woman's 
movement  any  positive  statement  of  aim  and  direction 
is  likely  to  be  disputed.  It  would  be  impossible  that 
the  leaders  should  be  committed  to  one  single  reform 
or  set  of  measures.  Each  group  apprehends  a  special 
need  with  intensity.  What  to  get  and  how  to  get  it 
are  not  seen  single-eyed  by  these  groups  with  the  calm 
concentration  of  Tammany  Hall.  The  catalogue  of 
their  names  shows  the  variety  of  their  activities  : 

1  See  Appendix,  "  Child  Welfare." 

« "  The  Civil  Servica  and  Women."  by  Dorothy  Zimmern. 


WOMEN  99 

Women's  Labour  League,  the  National  Federation  of 
Women  Workers,  the  Women's  Trade-Union  League, 
Women's  Industrial  Council,  Women's  Co-operative 
Guild,  Railway  Women's  Guild,  the  Women's  Municipal 
Party,  Catholic  Women's  League,  and  many  more. 
And  of  suffrage  societies  there  have  been  the  National 
Union  of  Women's  Suffrage  Societies,  the  Women's 
Social  and  Political  Union,  the  Conservative  and  Union- 
ist Women's  Franchise  Association,  the  Women's 
Liberal  Federation  (and  Forward  Suffrage  Union), 
the  Catholic  Women's  Suffrage  Society,  the  Women's 
Freedom  League,  the  National  Industrial  and  Pro- 
fessional Women's  Suffrage  Society,  the  New  Union,  the 
New  Constitutional  Society,  the  League  of  the  Society 
of  Friends,  the  People's  Suffrage  Federation,  the 
Actresses'  Franchise  League,  the  Society  of  Women 
Graduates,  the  Women  Writers'  Suffrage  League, 
the  Younger  Suffragists,  the  London  •  Graduates' 
Union  for  Women's  Suffrage,  the  Gymnastic  Teachers' 
Suffrage  Society,  the  Artists*  League,  the  Suffrage 
Atelier,  and  many  other  organizations. ^  In  what 
follows  I  give  only  a  massing  together  of  personal 
impressions  from  talks  with  many  women  interested 
in  the  forward  movement.  I  think  that  every  one 
would  ratify  some  part  of  the  programme.  Probably 
none  would  authorize  the  full  programme  as  embodying 
her  own  activity  and  desire.  What  I  think  the  woman's 
movement  of  Great  Britain  is  aiming  at  in  their  fight 
for  status,  which  will  be  mainly  waged  through  the 
instruments  of  trade-unions  and  suffrage,  includes : 
^ "  Women's  Suffrage,"  by  Mrs   Fawcett, 


too  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

(i)  Economic  independence.  To  understand  this, 
we  have  got  to  clear  our  talk  of  popular  phrases.  One 
of  the  portmanteau  phrases  of  our  day  is  that  of 
*'  women  going  into  industry."  Women  always  were 
m  industry  till  recently.  Idle  and  unoccupied  worsen 
were  the  exCSp^j'on  in  the  cMer  Erxgl^nd.^  The  later 
Victorian  Age  in  terms  of  human  welfare  was  in  this 
respect  a  reactionary  age.  The  old-time  industry  of 
women  was  of  course  home  industry.  When  most 
of  the  productive  employments  were  lifted  out  of  the 
home,  women  remained  in  the  home,  throwing  a  dead- 
weight on  the  productivity  of  the  nation  that  it  never 
before  had  to  carry.  The  v/oman  had  always  been  a 
producer  of  clothing  and  food,  and  had  shared  the 
burden  of  requirements  demanded  by  the  household. 
Suddenly  the  man  was  left  standing  alone,  with  the 
weight  of  a  wife  and  children,  sister  and  aunt,  on  his 
single  powers  of  production.  That  very  recent  institu- 
tion, the  man-supported  family,  is  a  failure.  It  is  a 
failure  because  the  individual  man  alone  cannot  buy 
the  food,  the  lodging,  and  the  clothing  which  make  the 
physical  basis  of  a  good  life.  Slum-dwelling,  under- 
nourishment, and  disease  are  the  proof  that  the  man 
has  failed  to  carry  the  burden  of  several  human  beings 
on  his  single  pair  of  shoulders.  The  immense  numbers 
of  unmarried  men  (over  three  million),  the  undue 
restriction  of  the  birth-rate,  are  further  proofs  of  the 
breakdown  of  that  modern  and  bad  institution,  the 
man-supported  family.  The  present  well-being  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  working-men's  homes  is 
*  '•  Women  in  Industry,"  by  Clara  E.  Collet. 


WOMEN  .;;'20^' 

due  to  the  fact  that  one  and  two  and  even  three  women 
are  now  wage-earners  who  before  "  helped  around  the 
house."  It  is  not  alone  that  the  wage  to  the  individual 
man  has  gone  up  for  perhaps  one-third  of  the  working 
population ;  it  is  that  multitudes  of  women  are 
earning  money  to-day  who  before  were  unemployed. 
I  found  in  the  Du  Cros  factory,  for  instance,  that  the 
majority  of  the  women  were  the  wives  and  relatives 
of  the  men  workers  who  had  gone  to  war.  In  the  old 
days  no  one  said,  "  A  woman's  proper  place  is  the 
home,"  meaning  by  the  home  a  retreat  stripped  of 
productive  industry.  The  home  meant  a  place  of 
manufacture,  where  the  woman  shared  with  the  man 
the  burden  of  production. 

The  problem  of  the  future  is  this  :  now  that  her 
work  is  at  a  geographical  distance  from  her  home,  has 
she  the  vitality  to  carry  on  her  activity  at  two  widely 
separated  points  ?  It  was  simple  to  turn  from  the 
milking  in  the  shed  to  the  baby  in  the  kitchen  ;  but 
it  is  an  unsolved  problem  how  to  rear  a  family  in  a 
side  street  and  tend  a  lathe  in  the  Woolwich  Arsenal. 
War  work  for  women  has  sharpened  this  problem.  It 
is  still  an  open  question  whether  the  excellent  wage 
made  by  the  young  mother  has  been  a  sufficient  offset 
to  the  fact  of  her  absence  from  home.  I  have  had 
testimony  that  the  children  under  five  years  of  age, 
left  in  the  hands  of  relatives  or  friends,  are  better 
cared  for  because  of  the  increased  family  budget.  I 
have  also  had  testimony  that  the  actual  care  of  the 
young  child  is  not  as  good  as  when  the  mother  is  at 
home.    With   overtime   and   war   strain,   all   former 


102  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

investigations  would  go  to  show  that  the  pressure  of 
the  last  two  and  a  half  years  on  the  organism  of  the 
woman  will  prove  a  permanent  damage  to  the  future 
of  the  race.  The  housing  where  large  numbers  have 
been  shovelled  together  far  from  home  is  admittedly 
bad.  The  severe  train  journeys  and  the  lack  of  moral 
oversight  for  the  younger  women  are  also  admittedly 
bad.  There  is  an  immense  amount  of  spade  work  to  be 
done  before  we  know  even  the  factors  in  the  woman 
question.^  We  must  study  the  full  curve  of  the  woman's 
life,  her  adolescence,  the  changing  curve  of  wifehood 
and  motherhood,  the  nervous  reactions  in  relation  to 
function.  We  have  been  generalizing  on  the  "  nature 
of  woman  "  when  we  have  only  the  slightest  psycho- 
logical basis.  It  is  impossible  to  formulate  a  policy 
or  even  a  programme  before  we  have  a  multitude  of 
recorded  observations.  In  place  of  these  we  are 
treated  to  large  and  noisy  claims  and  vehement  denials. 
Women  en  masse  have  done  their  best  by  going  ahead 
and  acting ;  but  social  students  have  not  done  their  best, 
because  they  have  joined  the  movement  and  swelled 
the  volume  of  voices  instead  of  extracting  the  data. 

To  return  to  the  list  of  aims  in  the  woman's  move- 
ment. I  think  that  women  believe  that  better  status 
will  be  obtained  by 

(2)  Increased    sociability.^     It    is    not    alone    for 

*  On  "  the  tendency  to  treat  questions  as  though  there  were  only 
one  sex,"  see  "  Women  in  Industry  :  a  BibUography,"  pubHshed  by 
the  Women's  Industrial  Council  (see  especially  "  Married  Women's 
Work.") 

2  Graham  Wallas  gives  careful  consideration  to  this  aspect  in 
"  The  Great  Society."  See  also,  "  Domestic  Service,"  an  Enquiry 
by  the  Women's  Industrial  Council. 


WOMEN  103 

the  economic  reason  that  woman  enters  the  industrial 
world  in  increasing  numbers  and,  as  in  this  war,  joy- 
fully exchanges  the  home  and  domestic  service  for  the 
life  of  the  factory.  Industry  is  sociable.  Its  organiza- 
tion, the  various  contracts  of  relationship,  answer  a 
craving  in  her  nature  as  in  the  man's.  Life  has  become 
an  increasingly  friendly  thing  down  the  ages,  and  the 
lonely  servant  or  housewife  misses  a  fulfilment  which 
even  the  underpaid  shop  girl  finds.  That  the  shop 
girl  fails  of  values  which  the  working-man's  wife  pos- 
sesses is  equally  true.  It  is  for  the  future  to  include 
both  sets  of  values  in  the  one  life.  In  our  overstress 
of  economic  determinism  we  are  apt  to  forget  that 
people  do  things  because  they  wish  to,  as  well  as 
because  they  have  to.  So  in  all  the  maladjustments  of 
women  in  industry  we  must  remember  that  they  are 
enjoying  the  conditions  that  surround  the  new  work — 
the  associations,  the  sociability — ^better  than  they 
enjoyed  the  isolated,  unproductive  home.  To  over- 
state the  injustice  and  suffering  of  the  industrial 
situation  shows  a  lack  of  perspective  on  human  his- 
tory. Comfort  and  well-being,  the  margin  of  leisure, 
the  elements  of  happiness,  are  greater  for  the  mass 
people  than  at  any  other  period.  A  sullenness  and 
despair  have  gone  from  the  earth.  The  curse  is 
being  removed.  Women  are  already  sharing  in  this 
betterment,  and  they  have  recently  elected  the  indus- 
trial world  as  a  field  of  activity  not  because  the  factory 
process  or  the  department-store  detail  offers  in  itself 
a  worthier  work  than  the  care  of  children,  but  in  part 
because   the   conditions   surrounding   the   industrial 


104  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

world  are  freer  and  friendlier  than  the  household  con- 
ditions. There  is  an  atmosphere  of  change  and 
growth  and  sociability  in  paid  work,  and  a  freedom 
of  hours  when  the  work  is  done.  There  is  probably 
small  answer  to  many  needs  of  woman's  nature  in 
clerical  routine  or  mechanical  process  work  in  factory, 
office,  and  store.  It  is  doubtless  as  sorry  a  thwarting 
of  full  self-expression  for  her  as  it  is  for  the  man.  But 
she '  finds  a  partial  answer  to  her  needs,  a  partial 
expression,  in  the  act  of  going  out  to  a  work  of  definitely 
assigned  hours,  of  money  payment,  of  set  periods 
of  freedom  and  recreation,  of  association  with  a 
group  of  fellow-workers,  and  the  wider  opportunity 
for  social  intercourse  on  self-respecting  terms  with 
men. 

And  so  we  come  to  what  I  believe  is  implicit  in  the 
movement  toward  industrial  work  for  women.  I  am 
sure  that  one  reason  why  they  do  not  care  to  remain 
half  occupied  in  their  own  homes,  and  why  the  best 
of  them  scorn  domestic  service,  is  that  they  wish  : 

(3)  A  freedom  of  choice  in  selecting  the  mate — 
a  freedom  which  was  imperfectly  granted  to  the 
woman  in  the  restricted  doniestic  area  where  she 
formerly  passed  her  life.  She  has  rejected  the  old 
policy  of  passive  waiting .  while  she  played  the  role 
of  dutiful  daughter  and  older  sister,  culminating  in 
the  greyness  of  unselected  *'  old  maid,"  the  aunt  and 
nurse  of  other  people's  children.  To  obtain  this 
freedom  of  choice  she  has  stepped  out  into  the  wider 
arena  of  the  industrial  world.  Between  the  ages  of 
eighteen  and  twenty-five  she  is  often  not  a  determined 


WOMEN  105 

worker  in  this  field. ^  She  puts  her  spending  money 
into  attractive  clothes  and  "  a  good  time  "  as  an  invest- 
ment in  aiding  her  to  select  a  mate.* 

(4)  An  equality  in  the  home.*  As  a  wage-earner 
she  can  decree  the  terms  of  her  position  in  the  house- 
hold. She  becomes  one  of  the  two  heads  of  the  house- 
hold, and  ceases  to  be  the  unpaid  housekeeper. 

(5)  Love.*  The  deepest  craving  of  her  nature  is 
to  be  loved.  The  old-time  home  did  not  fully  meet 
this  need,  because  love  is  based  on  equality,  and  she 
was  not  an  equal. 

(6)  Intellectual  and  spiritual  recognition.*  She 
wishes  her  mentality,  the  qualities  of  her  being,  to  be 
understood  by  the  man  she  loves  and  to  be  used  in  the 
life  of  the  community.  She  has  capacities  for  municipal 
housekeeping,  for  welfare  legislation,  for  civil  service, 
which  will  enrich  the  state. 

(7)  A  community  motherhood.^  A  majority  of 
women  will  find  self-expression  in  the  home,  but  there 
will  always  be  large  numbers  who  will  turn  to  the 
outer  world  to  express  their  mothering  instinct.  They 
will  express  it  by  nursing,  school-teaching,  reform 
movements,  welfare  work,  and  in  the  humanizing  of 
industry. 

(8)  Career  impulse.  Increasing  numbers  of  women 
find  the  same  fullness  of  life  in  certain  forms  of  modem 
work  that  men  find.    They  are  developing  directive 


»  See  "  Welfare  Work,"  by  E.  Dorothea  Proud. 
"  See  Appendix,  "  Women  in  Industry." 

» The  older  international  leaders  of  the  woman's  movement  have 
dealt  with  these  points— Ellen  Key,  Olive  Schreiner,  Jane  Addams. 


io6  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

capacity,  accuracy,  a  mastery  over  large  groups  of 
facts  and  a  power  of  generalization. 

Finally,  we  come  to  the  most  fundamental  of  all 
the  claims  made  by  women.    They  wish  : 

(9)  Birth-control.^  The  modern  woman  wishes  a 
final  voice  in  the  decision  as  to  the  number  of  her 
offspring.  She  refuses  to  place  herself  at  the  disposal 
of  the  man,  to  be  used  as  he  sees  fit.  Many  feminists 
will  angrily  deny  that  this  is  a  tendency  of  the  woman's 
movement.  Probably  no  leader  will  state  openly  that 
this  tendency  exists  among  modern  women.  But  the 
vital  statistics  of  the  various  countries  establish  the 
fact,  and  Great  Britain,  apart  from  the  lowest  elements 
of  the  population,  has  for  forty  years  revealed  a  falling 
birth-rate.  One  can  exempt  many  persons  and  many 
groups  from  the  implication  that  they  have  furthered 
this  tendency,  and  still  be  well  inside  what  the  facts 
show  in  stating  that  a  powerful  portion  of  the  woman's 
movement,  while  not  openly  advocating  birth-control, 
have  nevertheless  practised  it,  and  that  the  emancipa- 
tion of  women  is  proceeding  to  the  accompaniment  of  a 
falling  birth-rate.  The  unwillingness  here  to  state 
the  belief  on  which  one  acts  is  probably  the  last  relic 
of  the  shame  of  sex  which  English  and  Americans  share 
in  equal  measure. 

The  relationship  of  worker  to  master  has  passed 
through  slavery,  serfdom,  and  the  wage-nexus  up  to 
free  labour.  The  relationship  of  women  and  man 
has  had  no  such  sharp  stages,  marked  by  a  time 
division.  But  woman  has  been,  variously  and  some- 
^  See  Appendix,  "  Women  and  Population." 


WOMEN  107 

times  in  the  single  relationship,  the  instrument  of 
household  service,  the  instrument  of  pleasure,  and  the 
instrument  of  race  procreation.  In  none  of  these 
relationships,  as  houri,  squaw,  or  mother  in  Israel,  has 
she  been  the  free  agent.  Her  position  has  been 
assigned  her  by  man.  The  code  of  ethics  governing  her 
conduct  has  been  created  by  what  man  thinks  about 
her,  and  v/hat  he  decrees  she  ought  to  be  and  to  pro- 
duce. He  has  assigned  the  limits,  the  conditions,  and 
the  kind  of  her  activity.  As  she  steps  out  into  free- 
dom, and,  in  particular,  strikes  a  balance  between  her 
function  as  worker  and  citizen  and  her  function  of 
motherhood,  she  presents  the  community  with  this 
far-reaching  problem  of  birth-control.  In  "  Principles 
of  Social  Reconstruction,"  by  Bertrand  Russell,  I 
read : 

Very  large  numbers  of  women,  when  they  are 
sufficiently  free  to  think  for  themselves,  do  not 
desire  to  have  children,  or  at  most  desire  one 
child  in  order  not  to  miss  the  experience  which  a 
child  brings.  There  are  women  who  are  intelHgent 
and  active-minded  who  resent  the  slavery  to  the 
body  which  is  involved  in  having  children.  There 
are  ambitious  women,  who  desire  a  career  which 
leaves  no  time  for  children.  There  are  women  who 
love  pleasure  and  gaiety,  and  women  who  love  the 
admiration  of  men ;  such  women  will  at  least 
postpone  child-bearing  until  their  youth  is  past. 
All  these  classes  of  women  are  rapidly  becoming 
more  numerous,  and  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that 
their  numbers  wiU  continue  to  increase  for  many 
years  to  come. 

It  is  too  soon  to  judge  with  any  confidence  as 


io8  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

to  the  effects  of  women's  freedom  upon  private 
life  and  upon  the  life  of  the  nation.  But  I  think  it 
is  not  too  soon  to  see  that  it  will  be  profoundly 
different  from  the  effect  expected  by  the  pioneers 
of  the  women's  movement.  Men  have  invented, 
and  women  in  the  past  have  often  accepted,  a 
theory  that  women  are  the  guardians  of  the  race, 
that  their  life  centres  in  motherhood,  that  all  their 
instincts  and  desires  are  directed,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  to  this  end.  Tolstoy's  Natacha 
illustrates  this  theory  :  she  is  charming,  gay,  liable 
to  passion,  until  she  is  married  ;  then  she  becomes 
merely  a  virtuous  mother,  without  any  mental 
life.  This  result  has  Tolstoy's  entire  approval. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  very  desirable  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  nation,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  it  in  relation  to  private  life.  It  must  also 
be  admitted  that  it  is  probably  common  among 
women  who  are  physically  vigorous  and  not  highly 
civilized.  But  in  countries  like  France  and  England 
it  is  becoming  increasingly  rare.  More  and  more 
women  find  motherhood  unsatisfying,  not  what 
their  needs  demand.  And  more  and  more  there 
becomes  to  be  a  conflict  between  their  personal 
development  and  the  future  of  the  community. 
The  diminution  of  numbers,  in  all  likelihood,  will 
rectify  itself  in  time  through  the  elimination  of 
those  characteristics  which  at  present  lead  to  a 
small  birth-rate.  Men  and  women  who  can  still 
believe  the  Catholic  faith  will  have  a  biological 
advantage ;  gradually  a  race  will  grow  up  which 
will  be  impervious  to  all  the  assaults  of  reason 
and  will  believe  imperturbably  that  limitation  of 
families  leads  to  hell-fire.  Women  who  have 
mental  interests,  who  care  about  art  or  literature 
or  politics,  who  desire  a  career  or  who  value  their 
liberty,  will  gradually  grow  rarer,  and  be  more 


WOMEN  109 

and  more  replaced  by  a  placid  maternal  type  which 
has  no  interests  outside  the  home  and  no  dislike 
of  the  burden  of  motherhood.  This  result,  which 
ages  of  masculine  domination  have  vainly  striven 
to  achieve,  is  likely  to  be  the  final  outcome  of 
women's  emancipation  and  of  their  attempt  to 
enter  upon  a  wider  sphere  than  -that  to  which  the 
jealousy  of  men  confined  them  in  the  past. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  recent  talk  which  I  had  with 
Havelock  ElHs  he  expressed  himself  as  wholly  in  favour 
of  the  birth-control  movement.  He  believes  it  will 
tend  to  do  away  with  war  and  poverty.  He  spoke 
with  approval  of  the  publicity  campaign  carried''  on 
in  America  by  Mrs.  Sanger,  and  he  showed  me  a  copy 
of  a  little  magazine  of  birth-control,  issued  in  Cleve- 
land, Ohio.  In  his  latest  book,  "  Essays  in  War- 
Time,"  he  writes  : 

It  used  to  be  thought  small  families  were  immoral. 
We  now  begin  to  see  that  it  was  the  large  famiUes 
of  old  which  were  immoral.  Quality  rather  than 
quantity  is  the  racial  ideal  now  set  before  us. 

He  speaks  of  the  evil  Russian  factory  conditions  as 

"  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  a  high 
birth-rate  in  an  era  of  expanding  industriahsm. 
Here  is  the  goal  of  unrestricted  reproduction,  the 
same  among  men  as  among  herrings.  This  is  the 
ideal  of  those  persons,  whether  they  know  it  or  not, 
who  in  their  criminal  rashness  would  dare  to  arrest 
that  fall  in  the  birth-rate  which  is  now  beginning 
to  spread  its  beneficent  influence  in  every  civiUzed 
land." 

He  sees  birth-control  as  a  natural  process,  with 
laws  that  underlie  the  voluntary  and  deliberate  fac- 


no  INSIDE  The  BRITISH  ISLES 

tors.  "  To  improve  the  environment  is  to  check 
reproduction,"  so  that  birth-control  becomes  part  of 
the  entire  forward  movement  of  the  race.  "  Those 
who  desire  a  high  birth-rate  are  desiring,  whether  they 
know  it  or  not,  the  increase  of  poverty,  ignorance,  and 
wretchedness.''  All  this  concerns  the  nation  within 
itself.  With  the  international  aspect  of  birth-control, 
which  is  the  heart  of  the  problem,  the  next  chapter 
deals.  We  are  confronted  here  by  the  most  significant 
tendency  in  modern  civilization.  As  yet  we  are 
meeting  it  with  silence  or  with  rhetoric,  with  a  Mosaic 
morality  or  a  callous  cynicism ;  but  of  patient  study 
there  is  little.  The  modern  woman  has  precipitated 
upon  us  many  problems,- — "  dilution  "of  labour, 
and  union  rules,  and  all  the  rest, — ^but  no  other 
problem  so  searching,  so  fundamental,  as  that 
of  birth-control.  The  correct  solution  will  be 
determinative  of  the  future  of  the  race,  the  nation, 
and  the  world. 

Like  every  other  living  and  growing  thing,  the 
woman's  movement  will  continue  to  puzzle  us,  and  we 
shall  catch  up  with  it  only  to  find  it  has  swung  out  far 
ahead  and  over  a  wider  area. 

The  Feminists  of  the  War  Office  and  Admiralty 

The  War  Office  and  the  Admiralty  are  proving  them- 
selves in  this  war  daring  innovators  of  radicalism. 
They  will  be  ranked  in  the  future  alongside  of  the 
syndicalists  and  the  state  socialists  as  initiators  of  a 
new  social  order.  They  have  accepted  the  *'  new 
morality  "  of  the  most  advanced  school  of  Ellen  Key, 


WOMEN  III 

and  have  enacted  it  into  legislation.  What  they  have 
done  is  to  concede  the  claims  of  "  sex  agitators  "  and 
grant  an  endowment  for  maternity  to  the  women  of 
Great  Britain.  They  have  not  paused  at  orthodox 
motherhood,  sanctioned  by  court  and  church,  but  in 
their  impetuous  feminism  they  have  legitimized  unions 
without  the  benefit  of  clergy,  and  are  caring  for  un- 
married wives  and  mothers.  They  have  made  the 
advanced  programme  of  the  woman's  movement 
their  own,  and  have  swallowed  whole  the  scouts, 
cavalry  fringe,  and  lonely  outposts  of  sex  radicahsm. 
The  British  people  had  largely  confined  the  woman's 
question  to  a  suffrage  and  trade-union  movement,  a 
political  m^ovement.  They  had  fought  shy  of  the  sex 
implications  (maternity  endowment,  unmarried  mother- 
hood) upon  which  certain  advanced  thinkers  in  Ger- 
many and  the  Scandinavian  countries  had  long  been 
insistent.  But  at  one  bold  stroke  the  audacious 
pioneers  of  the  army  and  navy  have  opened  the  full 
question,  and  brushed  aside  the  reserve  and  timidity 
which  Britons,  like  Americans,  manifest  in  the  presence 
of  procreation.  The  result  is  a  scheme  as  amazing  as 
if  Kitchener  and  Havelock  Elhs  had  worked  in  genial 
collaboration.  Militarism  in  England  has  proved 
a  powerful  dynamic  for  democratic  control.  It  has 
bettered  the  status  of  labour,  and  it  has  created  the 
new  British  commonwealth  of  five  self-governing 
democracies.  The  longer  it  is  on  top,  the  more  equality 
it  generates  among -its  conscripts.  But  nothing  it  has 
done  is  so  subversive  of  the  old  order  as  this  endowment 
of  maternity.     Into  what  fresh  fields  of  liberalism  the 


112  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

staff-officers  and  sea-lords  will  break  during  the  coming 
months  no  observer  will  now  dare  predict. 

Eleanor  Rathbone,  the  famous  town  councillor  of 
Liverpool,  writes  in  *'  The  Common  Cause  "  of  these 
military  and  naval  feminists  : 

In  the  system  of  separation  allowances  they  have 
been  conducting  what  is,  in  effect,  the  greatest 
experiment  that  the  world  has  ever  seen  in  the 
State  endowment  of  maternity.  At  the  outbreak 
of  the  present  war  separation  allowances  were 
promised,  first  to  the  wives  and^hildren,  and  after- 
wards,in  succession,to  all  other  classes  of  dependants 
of  both  soldiers  and  sailors.  The  scale  is  sufficient 
at  least  to  place  the  large  majority  of  dependants 
of  soldiers  and  sailors  in  as  good  or  better  a  position 
financially  than  that  which  they  occupied  before 
the  wari  The  separation  allowance  is  the  pos- 
session of  the  wife  and  not  of  the  husband,  and 
cannot  be  drawn  by  him  even  with  her  consent. 
Thus,  the  allowance  has,  in  fact  (whatever  the 
intention  of  the  Government  may  have  been),  two 
characteristics  which  we  should  expect  to  find  in  a 
system  of  State  endowment  of  maternity,  viz.  :  it  is 
a  statutory  payment  to  a  woman  in  respect  of  her 
functions  as  a  wife  and  mother,  and  it  is  propor- 
tionate in  amount  to  the  number  of  her  children. 

What  really  matters  is  not  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  upper,  middle,  and  upper  working-classes 
restrict  their  families,  but  that  the  strata  below 
them,  including  the  whole  slum  population,  practise 
no  such  restriction.  They  multiply  quite  freely, 
and  public  health  authorities  combine  with  private 
benevolence  to  do  just  enough  to  keep  the  babies 
so  born  alive,  but  not  enough  to  make  them  healthy. 
Hence,  we  are,  as  a  nation,  recruiting  the  national 


WOMEN  113 

stock  in  increasing  proportions  from  the  lower  and 
least  desirable  elements  in  the  population.  The 
first  advantage  of  separation  allowances  is,  then,  that 
it  removes  the  temptation  to  undue  restriction  of 
families  from  those  far-seeing  and  cautious  parents 
who  now  practise  it,  and  that  it  gives  to  the  younger 
members  of  large  families  a  better  chance  of  healthy 
maintenance  than  they  have  ever  had  before. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  see  how  these  women  will 
take  it  when  the  war  is  over  and  they  are  asked  to 
go  back  to  their  old  status  of  dependency.  I 
confess  to  hoping  that  the  seeds  of  ''  divine  dis- 
content "  will  have  been  implanted  in  them  too 
deeply  to  be  eradicated,  and  that  we  feminists 
will  then  find  our  opportunity.  The  economic 
soundness  of  the  State  endowment  of  maternity 
has  always  appealed  to  me,  even  more  strongly, 
if  possible,  than  its  humanitarian  and  eugenic  advan- 
tages. Many  people  do  not  seem  even  to  have 
grasped  the  elementary  truth  that  the  work  of 
bearing  and  rearing  the  rising  generation  is  the 
occupation  of  all  occupations  that  is  most  absolutely 
essential  to  the  existence  of  the  State.  The  women 
who  are  engaged  in  this  occupation  have  to  be 
maintained,  and  so  have  their  children  until  they 
are  of  an  age  to  keep  themselves.  The  money  that 
this  costs  has  to  come  from  somewhere. 

These  separation  allowances  are  the  first  serious 
attempt  made  by  the  Government  to  deal  with  the 
question  of  population,  the  most  fundamental  question 
which  the  nation  faces.  If  half  a  million  of  the  young 
men  are  killed  or  hopelessly  incapacitated  by  this  war, 
the  resources  of  the  country  are  diminished  beyond 
repair  unless  a  method  of  replenishment  is  instituted. 

H 


114  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Our  past  method  of  allowing  the  slum  population  to 
multiply,  and  forcing  our  better-class  workers  to  restrict 
their  families,  is  national  suicide.  English  thought 
is  almost  silent  on  this  question  of  whence  the  next 
generation  is  to  come  when  the  number  of  the  fathers 
is  lessened.  There  is  a  buzz  of  talk  on  tillage,  cattle- 
raising,  fertility  of  soil,  but  of  how  to  get  the  human 
product  there  is  little  said.    Bertrand  Russell  writes  : 

It  seems  unquestionable  that  if  our  economic 
system  and  our  moral  standards  remain  unchanged, 
there  will  be,  in  the  next  two  or  three  generations, 
a  rapid  change  for  the  worse  in  the  character  of  the 
population  in  all  civiHzed  countries,  and  an  actual 
diminution  of  numbers  in  the  most  civilized. 

There  is  reason  to  fear  in  the  future  three  bad 
results  :  first,  an  absolute  decline  in  the  numbers  of 
English,  French,  and  Germans ;  secondly,  as  a 
consequence  of  this  decline,  their  subjugation 
by  less  civilized  races  and  the  extinction  of  their 
tradition ;  thirdly,  a  revival  of  their  numbers 
on  a  much  lower  plane  of  civilization,  after  genera- 
tions of  selection  of  those  who  have  neither  intelli- 
gence nor  foresight.  If  this  result  is  to  be  avoided, 
the  present  unfortunate  selectiveness  of  the  birth- 
rate must  be  somehow  stopped. 

The  problem  is  one  which  applies  to  the  whole 
Western  civiHzation.  There  is  no  difficulty  in 
discovering  a  theoretical  solution,  but  there  is 
great  difficulty  in  persuading  men  to  adopt  a 
solution  in  practice,  because  the  effects  to  be  feared 
are  not  immediate,  and  the  subject  is  one  upon 
which  people  are  not  in  the  habit  of  using  their 
reason.  If  a  rational  solution  is  ever  adopted,  the 
cause  will  probably  be  international  rivalry.    It  is 


WOMEN  115 

obvious  that  if  one  state,  say  Germany,  adopted  a 
rational  means  of  dealing  with  the  matter,  it  would 
acquire  an  enormous  advantage  over  other  states 
unless  they  did  likewise.  After  the  war  it  is 
possible  that  population  questions  will  attract 
more  attention  than  they  did  before,  and  it  is 
likely  that  they  will  be  studied  from  the  point  of 
view  of  international  rivalry.  This  motive,  unlike 
reason  and  humanity,  is  perhaps  strong  enough  to 
overcome  men's  objections  to  a  scientific  treatment 
of  the  birth-rate. 

Certain  radicals  suggest  the  extension  of  birth- 
control  to  the  lowest  elements  in  the  population,  so 
that  the  ignorant  and  diseased  and  feeble-minded  will 
not  breed  out  of  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity. But  birth-control  alone,  even  when  generally 
applied  inside  a  nation  instead  of  being  applied  as  now 
only  to  the  intelligent  and  wholesome  elements,  does 
not  meet  the  international  situation,  which  is  one 
where  the  militaristic  and  autocratic  nations  go  on 
multiplying,  and  so  altering  the  balance  of  power. 
Two  wars  have  revealed  that  a  stable  population,  like 
the  French,  no  matter  what  its  national  well-being 
and  its  courage,  is  not  in  itself  powerful  enough  to 
resist  the  invasion  of  a  military  nation  superior  in 
numbers.  A  generally  applied  birth-control  does  not 
meet  the  actual  situation  of  an  ever-expanding  Slav 
race,  with  the  yellow  races  in  the  near  background 
and  the  early  future  in  world  arrangements.  We 
cannot  rely  on  an  eternal  world  peace  to  permit  us 
to  reduce  the  populations  of  the  democracies 

If   England   becomes   a   nation   of  a   permanent, 


ii6  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

balanced,  static  civilization  of  forty  million  persons, 
that  gives  the  future  to  prolific  races,  and  the  liberal 
democratic  experiment  is  doomed.  In  America  we  are 
going  this  way  blindly.  Our  old  stock  is  practising 
birth  restriction  and  is  passing  out  of  existence.  We 
have  hidden  from  ourselves  the  perils  and  ultimate 
disaster  of  this  process  by  importing  fresh  hordes  of 
vital  peasants  from  southern  and  south-eastern 
Europe  ;  but  the  process  is  working  to  the  extinction 
of  the  old  America,  and  it  is  substituting  different  races, 
of  alien  blood  and  belief.    A  control  of  our  life  is  being 

.  exercised  by  other  races,  and  in  a  few  generations 
we  shall  have  an  America  as  distinct  from  Puritan 
New  England  and  the  Cavalier  South  as  Dubhn  is 
different  from  Manchestei:.  Immigration  is  the  easy 
and  fatal  solution  for  a  lessening  stock  in  America,  but 

"it  is  no  answer  for  England.  Englishmen  will  never 
let  themselves  be  drowned  out  by  tides  of  Sicilians, 
Slovaks,  and  Russian  Jews.  The  future  of  England 
rests  on  whether  its  women  are  mothers,  and  whether 
those  mothers  and  their  children  are  well  provided  for. 
All  other  problems  of  reconstruction  are  derivative  as 
compared  with  the  creation  of  life  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  healthy  and  numerous  child  population. 
Lowering  the  death-rate  by  good  milk  and  sanitation 
and  housing  and  medical  care  is  only  a  partial  cure  for 
a  falling  birth-rate.  And  saying,  *'  Let  women  work 
in  the  factories  and  professions  and  be  mothers  at  the 
same  time ''  does  not  meet  the  fact  that  the  factory 
and  the  home  are  separate  places. 
"  More  and  better  children  "  is  obviously  the  only 


WOMEN  117 

solution  for  a  Western  democracy  in  a  world  where 
neighbouring  nations  are  not  under  democratic  con- 
trol. So  we  are  forced  back  to  some  such  answer 
as  that  of  the  feminist  movement,  led  by  the  War  Office 
and  the  Admiralty.  Do  not  penalize  by  poverty  the 
woman  who  gives  sons  and  daughters  to  the  state ; 
endow  motherhood.  Population  is  a  community  and 
state  concern.  A  nationalized  motherhood  is  of  more 
importance  than  nationalized  railways.  The  military 
authorities  have  blazed  the  way  by  a  reckless  disregard 
of  laissez-faire  and  conventional  morality.  They 
have  laid  down  the  principle  of  state  guardianship 
for  the  profession  of  motherhood.  It  now  rests. with 
the  common  sense  of  England — a  common  sense 
reinforced  by  the  instinct  of  self-preservation — ^to 
refuse  to  permit  the  great  experiment  of  the  War  Office 
and  the  Admiralty  to  die  away. 

Bowing  Them  Out 

The  women  of  England,  having  received  the  thanks 
of  a  grateful  kingdom,  are  now  about  to  be  rushed  to 
the  door  and  kicked  downstairs.  They  will  be  con- 
sidered unm.annerly  if  they  do  not  pick  themselves 
up  from  the  door-step  and  disappear  unostentatiously 
into  the  night.  The  process  of  accelerating  them  into 
their  place  is  already  under  way.  The  British  bar 
has  recently  voted  down  the  admission  of  "  duly 
qualified  women  to  the  profession  "  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority.  The  sober  sense  of  the  members  came 
to  voice  in  the  orator  who  was  able  to  speak  for  "  a 
good  many  members  of  the  bar  serving  with  the 


ii8  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

colours.  They  had  the  first  claim  to  say  to  what 
extent  the  old  tradition  which  confined  admission  to 
the  bar  to  the  male  sex  should  be  maintained.  To 
take  such  a  decision  in  their  absence  would  be  unjust 
to  them." 

The  man  at  the  front  is  being  worked  overtime 
in  these  days.  He  has  to  stand  duty  in  wet  trenches, 
and  then  the  ghostly  projection  of  him  is  yanked  back 
to  elderly  gatherings  in  London  to  protest  against 
alterations  in  the  ancient  way  of  doing  things. 

So  woman's  fight  for  recognition  reaches  its  third 
campaign.  In  the  days  before  the  war  there  was  a 
dead-weight  of  opposition,  made  up  of  ignorance, 
distrust  of  change,  and  sex  scorn.  Then  came  the 
need  of  woman's  help  in  471  munition  processes,  in 
medicine  and  organization.  If  girls  made  shells, 
steered  delivery-wagons,  conducted  hospitals,  served 
on  the  police  force,  managed  business,  and  adjusted 
industrial  disputes,  there  was  little  cogency  in  saying 
that  women  could  not  do  man's  work.  As  one  of  the 
women  who  helped  to  pull  England  through  said : 
"  Before  the  war  women  were  only  the  mothers  of 
men.  Now  they  had  risen  to  the  dizzy  heights  of  the 
makers  of  machine-guns,"  The  tide  was  with  them, 
and  every  wind  that  blew  filled  their  sails. 

Now  comes  the  third  and  bitterest  phase  of  the 
long  fight.  '*  Thank  you  kindly,  but  it  is  time  for  you 
to  go."  Bad  years  are  ahead  for  the  women  of  Eng- 
land. But  let  no  one  worry  unduly.  They  have 
come  to  stay,  and  they  will  obtain  the  vote.  During 
the  transition  period,  when  the  shell  factories  are 


WOMEN  119 

becoming  industrial  plants,  when  the  returning  soldiers 
will  have  first  call  on  the  jobs,  when  the  men's  trade- 
unions  are  making  up  their  minds  whether  women  are 
their  allies  or  their  enemies,  and  when  Parliament  is 
deciding  whether  its  ancient,  solitary  reign  will  be 
molested  by  these  energetic  new-comers,  the  female 
semi-skilled  workers  will  have  a  severe  experience. 
The  unskilled  workers  will  have  the  same  sordid 
experience  they  have  always  had.*  This  period  of 
transition  may  extend  through  several  years.  Grad- 
ually the  creation  of  new  industries,  making  use  of  the 
new  automatic  machinery  introduced  under  war 
pressure,  will  again  offer  jobs  to  the  demobilized 
women.  Winning  the  suffrage,  women  will  have  the 
power  to  enforce  their  demands  for  proper  payment, 
and  as  voters  they  will  suddenly  become  welcome 
additions  to  the  male  trade-imions,  and  together  they 
will  continue  the  fight  for  a  high  standard  of  living  for 
both  men  and  women. ^  -i 

Over  one  million  women  have  recently  entered 
industry,  transport,  commerce,  finance  and  banking, 
government  employment,  and  agriculture.  Six  hun- 
dred thousand  of  these  are  busy  in  munition-making. 
This  increase  came  from  five  classes  :  first,  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  came  from  domestic  servants ; 
second,  from  the  ranks  of  out-workers  and  small 
employers  ;  third,  from  women  remaining  in  industry 
after  marriage  and  to  a  later  age,  and  girls  fresh  from 
school ;     fourth,    married    women,    widows,    former 

1  Scebohm  Rowntree  points  out  that  when  peace  comes  we  shall 
probably  see  in  industry  grave  dislocation,  then  feverish  activity, 
then  long  depression. 


120  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

dependants,  returning  to  employment ;  fifth,  middle- 
class  women,  society  women,  entering  industry  and 
commerce.^ 

Many  of  these  women  will  return  to  the  home  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  but  a  large  percentage  have 
come  to  stay.  Many  have  replaced  the  man  in  semi- 
skilled and  unskilled  work,  one  woman  for  one  man. 
This  is  direct  substitution.  Indirect  substitution 
is  found  when  woman  takes  the  place  of  an  unskilled 
or  a  semi-skilled  man  who  in  turn  takes  the  place 
of  a  fully  skilled  man.  Group  substitution  is  when  a 
group  of  women  takes  the  place  of  a  smaller  group  of 
men,  and  substitution  by  rearrangement  when  women, 
plus  automatic  machinery,  do  work  previously  requir- 
ing skilled  workers.  The  introduction  of  women 
by  these  methods  of  substitution  is  virtually  general 
throughout  the  trades. 

In  mechanical  engineering,  in  "  controlled  "  firms, 
the  money  wages  received  on  piece-work  are  far  above 
those  earned  by  women  before  the  war.  Two  pounds 
a  week  is  rather  common,  and  instances  of  thirteen 
dollars  a  week  day-rates  are  known.  By  a  series  of 
orders  a -minimum  wage  of  a  pound  a  week  for  forty- 
eight  hours  was  gradually  established. 

In  the  cotton  trade,  boot-and-shoe  industry,  tailor- 
ing, bleaching  and  dyeing,  woollen  and  worsted,  china 
and  earthenware  industries,  and  wood-work,  wages 
have  been  much  bettered  during  the  war. 

The  same  care  in  substitution  has  not  been  made 

1  For  this  page,  and  the  next  two  pages,  see  "  The  Position  of 
Women  after  the  V^ar,"  the  Report  of  the  Standing  Joint  Committee 
of  Industrial  Women's  Organizations. 


WOMEN  121 

!n  agriculture,  in  biscuit  and  bread,  rubber  works, 
confectionery  and  sweets.  The  woman's  wage  here 
has  tended  to  increase  during  the  war,  but  probably 
not  to  equal  the  man's  rate. 

Summing  up,  the  substitution  of  women  for  men 
has  increased  the  money  wage  for  women.  In  trades 
with  definite  agreements  the  women's  rates  approxi- 
mate the  men's.  Where  there  has  been  no  agreement, 
the  women's  wage  has  been  better  than  before  the  war, 
but  is  still  far  too  low. 

Of  women  in  women's  work,  in  the  fuse  and  powder 
trades,  as  the  result  of  arbitration,  a  gain  has  been 
made.  In  electrical  engineering  and  telephone 
work,  except  for  certain  cases,  the  rate  has  changed 
but  little.  Why  hai5  woman  won  a  decided  advance 
in  mechanical  engineering  and  not  in  electrical  engin- 
eering ?  The  answer  is  that  she  is  organized  in 
mechanical  engineering.  Skilled  groups  of  women 
workers  in  the  power-machine  trade  have  won  real 
advances.  In  sugar,  confectionery,  tailoring,  and 
shirt-making  a  fair  advance  has  been  made.  But  all 
three  trades  are  closely  related  to  war  work.  Where 
the  woman's  trade  organization  has  been  strong  she 
has  obtained  a  decided  rise  in  wages,  whether  she  has 
been  doing  women's  work  or  substitution  work  in 
men's  jobs.  But  the  bulk  of  women's  industries  have 
not  kept  step  with  the  increased  cost  of  living,  nor 
has  substitution  for  men.  necessarily  obtained  the 
man's  full  rate.  The  standing  Joint  Committee  of 
Industrial  Women's  Organizations  reports  that  muni- 
tion-workers have  obtained  a  fair  minimum  promised 


122  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

them  by  the  Government  exactly  in  so  far  as  their 
organizations  have  enforced  the  promise. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  it  is  possible  at  any  time 
to  obtain  a  decided  advance  in  women's  wages,  in- 
cluding sweated  industries.  This  advance  will  be 
obtained  when,  and  not  until  when,  the  trade-union 
movement  enforces  it.  The  trade-union  movement 
will  probably  not  enforce  it  until  women  have  the  vote. 

For  two  and  a  half  years  women  industrial  workers 
as  a  class  have  had  more  money  than  ever  before. 
What  has  been  done  with  it  ?  It  has  gone  into  milk 
for  the  children,  meat  for  a  few  meals  a  week  instead 
of  once  a  week,  heat  in  the  rooms,  a  clean  dress  for  the 
little  girl,  a  picture-show  for  all  the  children.  It  has 
gone  into  war  savings.  It  has  purchased  status,  that 
most  precious  of  all  things.  Money  buys  self-respect 
and  a  sense  of  well-being.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
life  of  many  of  these  women  they  have  not  been  obliged 
to  go  under-nourished,  a  little  pinched,  a  little  chilly, 
dressed  in  a  garb  that  stamps  them  of  the  lower  class. ^ 
They  have  put  off  the  faded  shawl,  the  dreary  blouse, 
the  discoloured  straw  hat,  the  boots  with  sagging  heels, 
and  the  heavy-threaded  stockings,  thick  at  the  ankles.^ 
Is  it  anything  but  good  that  some  of  them  have  rented 
a  piano  for  the  home,  and  now  have  a  bit  of  fun  and 
music  in  crowded  rooms  ?  I  have  a  friend  who  has 
oversight  of  some  thousands  of  these  workers.  He 
told  me  of  a  girl  who  bought  three  suits  of  silk  under- 
wear at  thirty-seven  shillings  a  suit.     It  is  nice  to  feel 

1  See  "  Downward  Paths,"  for  a  study  of  economic  pressure  in  the 
lives  of  working  women. 
a  See  Appendix,  "  Clothes." 


WOMEN  123 

well-dressed  from  the  skin  out,  when  all  the  days  of 
one's  youth  one  has  been  in  the  uniform  of  the  poor. 

But  he  told  me  another  thing.  When  one  of  the 
workers  died  of  consumption,  he  sold  223  tickets  at 
sixpence,  a  shilling,  and  half-a-crown  each  among  the 
other  workers  for  the  widow  and  two  children.  Every 
week  has  its  benefit  for  some  family  of  the  shop. 
Every  week,  with  an  open  hand,  the  workers  pay  out 
their  money  for  concert  or  theatrical  entertainment  to 
make  a  fund  for  people  in  trouble.  For  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  these  women  the  years  of  war  has  brought 
the  first  free  spending  money  they  have  ever  known, 
and  there  is  something  appealing,  if  we  knew  it,  in  the 
history  of  every  shilling  they  have  spent. 

The  war  has  introduced  grave  dangers  to  the  health 
of  women  by  night  work  ;  overtime  ;  hot  atmospheric 
conditions  such  as  occur  in  certain  processes  in  woollen 
textile ;  severe  muscular  action,  as  in  the  lifting  of 
heavy  weights ;  and  by  poisoning,  as  in  some  of  the 
processes  in  shell-filling.^  In  munition  work  there 
has  been  a  nervous  strain  connected  with  certain  of 
the  processes  and  the  dangers  of  fire  and  explosion. 
In  addition,  a  few  factories  are  in  Zeppelin  areas,  and 
on  a  telephone  warning  all  hghts  go  out,  and  the 
women  lie  fiat  on  the  floor  till  the  danger  is  past .  When 
the  word  comes  to  them  to  rise,  one  or  two  in  a  depart- 
ment are  found  in  a  faint. 

To  offset  this,  the  Government  has  made  the  most 
determined  effort  in  the  history  of  any  public  institu- 

1  See  the  reports  of  the  "  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Com- 
mittee." 


124  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tion  to  enforce  proper  conditions  of  work,  to  fight 
against  overtime,  to  establish  cleanliness,  sanitation, 
and  nourishment.  The  welfare  department,  under 
the  ministry  of  munitions,  has  literally  laboured  day 
arid  night  to  guard  the  girls  and  women  of  Great 
Britain.  It  has  sought  to  preserve  six  hundred 
thousand  women  from  results  of  war  pressure  which 
would  have  been  disastrous.  As  a  peace  measure, 
welfare  work  is  still  an  open  question  when  conducted 
by  private  enterprise  unless  it  is  clearly  an  addition 
to  a  living  wage  and  not  a  clever  substitute  for  it. 
But  as  a  Government  measure  in  a  time  of  the  severest 
crisis  in  the  history  of  the  world  it  deserves  nothing  but 
praise. 

Of  the  milHon  women  who  have  transferred  them- 
selves into  new  work,  how  many  are  going  to  stay  ? 
No  one  knows.  An  organization  to  combine  women 
in  certain  trades  sent  out  recently  a  form  of  questions 
with  the  inquiry,  "  Do  you  wish  after  the  war  to  return 
to  your  former  work  or  to  stay  in  what  you  are  doing 
now  7 "  Of  three  thousand  answers,  twenty-five 
hundred  replied  that  they  wished  to  remain  in  the 
new  work.  That  is,  five-sixths.  On  the  other  hand, 
an  investigator  who  has  made  a  study  of  social  con- 
ditions among  the  Coventry  workers  tells  me  that  the 
majority  of  the  women  say  they  will  leave  industry 
and  take  up  home  life  after  the  war.  Some  of  them  are 
married  women  who  are  now  making  the  family  income 
while  the  husband  is  at  the  front.  Others  are  upper- 
class  women  who  are  "  filling  in  "  from  patriotic  motives 
for  the  duration  of  the  war  only.    Others  are  girls 


WOMEN  125 

with  their  ''boys"  at  the  front.  The  young  man 
will  return  from  the  war  "  fed  up  "  with  the  life  of  a 
"  stag  camp,"  keenly  desirous  of  a  home  and  a  family. 
Each  locality,  then,  has  to  be  studied,  for  each  offers 
its  own  set  of  conditions.  But  out  of  the  melee  we 
can  see  several  hundred  thousand  women,  new- 
comers in  the  trades  of  men,  remaining.  We  must 
remember  that  the  old  work  no  longer  is  open  to  them 
to  the  same  extent  as  in  the  days  before  the  war. 
It  is  probable  that  some  of  the  luxury  trades  have 
ceased  for  ever.  Common-sense,  taxation,  and  the 
organized  state  will  not  permit  the  old-time  expenditure 
on  millinery,  ball-dresses,  and  fancy  sweets.  Domestic 
service  will  not  again  suck  up  one  million  and  three- 
quarters  women.  The  house  that  kept  twenty-four 
servants  will  keep  ten,  the  family  that  had  three  will 
"  do  "  with  one.  There  is  no  direction  for  women  to 
go  but  forward. 

Will  there  be  work  for  them  ?  No  one  knows. 
Coventry  has  already  received  orders  for  1918,  and 
it  is  probable  that  industry  there  will  run  on  at  full 
capacity  for  a  year  or  two  at  least  after  the  war.  In 
Sheffield  the  employers  plan  a  swift  conversion  to  the 
trades  of  peace.  The  great  steel  firms  anticipate  an 
undiminished  demand  for  their  produce.  What  made 
shells  will  be  turned  into  railway  supplies,  for  instance. 
Already  they  have  orders  that  guarantee  the  immediate 
future — orders  from  Great  Britain  and  Russia.  They 
state  that  they  will  continue  the  women  at  work  and 
will  at  the  same  time  fit  in  the  men.  But  such  a  report 
is  unusual. 


126  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

There  are  men's  trade-unions  who  stood  by  the  job 
until  the  women  received  the  same  rate  of  pay  that 
they  possessed.  One  or  two  other  men's  unions 
have  promised  to  make  the  same  fight  after  the  war 
for  the  women.  But  these  instances  of  rendering  the 
work  of  reconstruction  easy  are  unique,  and  the 
women  must  probably  make  their  own  fight,  unaided 
by  the  Government,  by  the  men's  trade-unions,  and 
by  the  employers.  Unorganized  and  unenfranchised, 
they  will  be  the  centre  of  unrest  and  suffering,  a  run- 
ning sore  in  industry,  imperilling  the  standard  of  living 
established  by  the  men's  organizations,  scabbing 
wages,  and  weakening  the  trade-union  movement. ^ 
With  votes  and  widespread  unions,  they  would  become 
a  vital  element  in  the  emancipation. ^ 

What  women  face  at  the  end  of  the  war  is  the  chaos 
into  w^hich  they  fell  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  when 
over  a  million  and  a  half  of  employed  women  were 
thrown  out  of  work  or  placed  on  short. time.  With 
the  coming  of  peace  the  semi-skilled  women  will  be 
demobilized  from  the  munitions  factories  and  dumped 
upon  the  labour  market.  At  the  same  time  two  and 
a  half  million  men  will  leave  war  trades  and  flood  the 
labour  market.  And  the  army  will  be  demobilized. 
Much  of  the  new  machinery  created  for  war  needs 
will  be  available  for  the  industries  of  peace ;  but 
the  period  of  transition  will  be  long,  because  the  plant 
must  be  adjusted  to  the  new  requirements,  markets 

1  See    Mrs.   Fawcett's    chapter,   "  The  Position  of  Women  in 
Economic  Life  "  in  the  volume  "  After  V^ar  Problems." 
»  See  Appendix,  "  Trade  Union  and  Votes  for  Women." 


WOMEN  127 

for  the  product  developed,  and  capital  found.  It 
may  be  two  years,  it  may  be  five  years,  before  what 
has  been  a  shell  factory  becomes  an  engineering  plant, 
turning  out  an  equal  volume  of  production.  During 
the  time  in  which  the  business  is  finding  itself  the 
women  workers  are  going  to  be  the  last  class  in  the 
labour  market  to  be  considered.  The  old  skilled,  semi- 
skilled, and  unskilled  workers  returning  from  the  army, 
the  men  munition-workers,  the  partly  wounded  soldiers, 
will  have  prior  consideration.  They  will  be  safe- 
guarded by  a  carefully  wrought  scheme  of  demobiliza- 
tion, by  a  properly  adjusted  unemployment  insurance, 
by  a  pension  system.  It  rests  with  the  women,  by 
agitation  and  pressure,  to  establish  for  themselves  a 
standard  of  living,  and  to  hold  fast  to  the  undoubted 
immense  gains  they  have  made  during  the  war. 

The  task  is  probably  not  one  primarily  of  creating 
work.  The  rebuilding  of  Belgium  and  northern  France, 
the  deterioration  of  plant  in  Great  Britain,  the  closer 
industrial  association  of  England  with  her  colonies,  the 
needs  of  Russia — all  these  give  promise  of  a  stimulated 
market  for  British  products.  The  task  is  one  of  organ- 
ization, devising  a  machinery  for  connecting  the 
worker  with  the  job,  safeguarding  unemployment,  and 
maintaining  the  standard  of  living.  The  new  Minister 
of  Labour  is  arranging  to  breathe  life  into  the  sleepy 
institution  of  labour  exchanges,  and  to  add  eight 
hundred  to  the  number.  The  Government  has  offered 
the  e:^tension  of  compulsory  unemplojnnent  insurance. 
This  meets  only  the  needs  of  some  of  the  war  workers 
and  meets  those  needs  only  in  part.    Seven  shillings 


128  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

a  week  amounts  to  poor  relief,  and  does  not  reconstruct 
the  industrial  situation  of  the  total  group. 

Certain  of  the  women  leaders  have  suggested  a  wide- 
spread unemployment  insurance  which  shall  preserve 
the  standard  of  living  ;  an  analysis  of  the  market 
as  to  where  workers  will  be  required,  with  the  distribu- 
tion of  such  information  through  trade-unions  and 
employment  exchanges  ;  and  a  supply  of  blank  forms 
to  be  filled  up  by  the  workers  desiring  future  employ- 
ment ;  due  notice  of  dismissal  to  be  given  by  "  con- 
trolled "  establishments,  and  return  railway  fares  to 
be  paid  to  those  workers  who  have  come  from  a  dis- 
tance ;  and  the  use  of  Government  factories  for  a 
continuing  national  work.  Further,  they  have  sug- 
gested a  system  of  training  in  new  trades  for  women 
displaced  from  work.  Such  is  the  immediate  pro- 
gramme. 

But  back  of  it  lies  a  deeper  need.  The  suggestion 
has  been  made  for  a  minimum  wage.  This  could 
well  be  made  part  of  the  general  policy,  which  was 
already  beginning  to  be  formulated  before  the  war 
for  a  minimum  wage  in  agriculture  and  the  underpaid 
men's  trades.  Experts  had  agreed  before  the  war 
that  the  primary  condition  to  be  met  was  that,  with 
the  least  possible  delay,  all  workers  of  normal  ability 
should  receive  as  an  absolute  minimum  a  reasonable 
living  wage.  By  this  is  meant  a  wage  which  will 
enable  an  adult  man  to  maintain  a  family  of  normal 
size  in  a  state  of  physical  efficiency,  and  which  will 
allow  a  margin  for  recreation.  With  the  prices  of 
July,  1 9 14,  this  was  twenty-seven  shillings  a  week, 


WOMEN  129 

allowing  five  shillings  for  rent.  With  present  prices 
this  has  become  thirty-six  shillings.  But  to  establish 
a  minimum  of  thirty-six  shilHngs  a  week  at  one  stroke 
is  impracticable ;  so  the  present  demand  is  for  a 
minimum  of  thirty  shillings.  The  minimum  suggested 
for  a  woman  was  sixteen  shillings  before  the  war.  It 
is  now  a  few  shilHngs  over  a  pound  a  week  (the  rate 
gradually  established  by  the  Government  in  munition 
factories).  Some  of  the  experts  ruled  out  the  sugges- 
tion that  a  woman  should  be  paid  as  a  minimum  enough 
to  maintain  a  family.  They  argued  that  minimum 
wages  should  be  arranged  with  a  view  to  normal  con- 
ditions, and  though  there  are  many  exceptions,  the 
normal  condition  is  for  man  to  maintain  a  family  and 
for  a  woman  not  to  do  so.  This  contention  will  of 
course  be  disputed  by  many  feminists  on  the  showing 
of  the  facts.  But  what  is  clear  in  the  matter  is  that 
there  is  a  rapidly  increasing  tendency  toward  a 
minimum  wage,  and  that  a  minimum-wage  act  must 
include  women. 

Other  measures  of  reconstruction  are  being  pressed 
by  the  leaders  of  working- women.  Investigation  is 
needed  as  to  what  employments  are  hurtful  to  a 
woman's  organism.  Reform  of  the  factory  laws  is 
included  in  the  changes  that  are  now  seen  to  be  required. 
The  eight-hour  day  must  be  enforced.  President 
Wilson  by  his  decision  in  the  railway  strike  has  enforced 
a  principle  to  which  the  trade-unions  all  over  the  world 
must  respond.  Women  officials  are  required  in 
greatly  increased  numbers  to  safeguard  the  position 
of  women  in  industry.    Not  only  must  the  number  of 


130  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

women  factory  inspectors  be  increased,  but  it  may 
prove  to  be  necessary  that  members  of  the  new  pro- 
fession of  welfare  workers  in  factories  shall  be  appointed 
by  the  state  rather  than  paid  for  by  the  employer,  and 
the  new  labour  ministry  must  have- among  its  under- 
secretaries a  permanent  representation  of  women. 
The  trade-unions  must  grant  admission  to  women  in 
return  for  monetary  contributions,  and  the  women 
must  have  a  measure  of  control  of  the  machinery  of  the 
union.  The  children  who  by  means  of  a  special 
certificate  have  leaked  into  industry  must  be  returned 
to  school.  This  at  one  sweep  would  relieve  the  labour 
market  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  persons 
in  industry  and  agriculture.  It  is  probable  that  all 
these  reforms  are  dependent  on  the  winning  of  the 
suffrage. 

Disorganization 

The  chaos  out  of  which  woman's  work  is  slowly 
emerging  will  be  revealed  by  a  modern  instance  better 
than  by  tons  of  generalization.  I  have  asked  a  young 
woman  of  excellent  middle-class  family,  now  financially 
pinched,  to  make  a  chart  of  her  recent  life-history. 
Better  than  any  "  wail  "  it  shows  the  cul-de-sac  of  the 
old  "  genteel  "  occupations.  It  explains  why  she  has 
turned  to  clerical  work  in  the  War  Ofiice,  paying  a 
salary  of  twenty-seven  shillings  a  week.  It  shows  why 
she  will  not  return  to  the  old  job  after  the  war.  Like 
a  few  hundred  thousand  other  women,  she  has  entered 
organized  life  determined  to  stay.  Employers,  the 
state,  and  trade-unions  must  reckon  with  her.     Her 


WOMEN  131 

chapter  of  dreary  episode  is  followed  by  a  chapter  in 
sharp  contrast  on  the  policewomen,  who  have  inserted 
organization  into  a  muddled  commimity.  The  two 
chapters  together  are  the  concrete  demonstration  of 
the  economic  and  social  disturbance  which  has  pre- 
cipitated women  into  the  central  activities  of  the 
community. 

My  friend's  position  was  that  of  *'  lady  help,"  the 
kind  of  work  which  is  "  woman's  work,"  and  has  the 
approval  of  anti-feminists  and  other  reactionary 
theorists.  I  have  preserved  her  arrangement  and 
phrasing. 


132  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

COMPANION  HELP  IN  BOARDING-HOUSE  AT 
ST.  LEONARDS 

£^o  ($100)  salary  a  year. 
I  shilling,  weekly  laundry. 
Tips,  gloves,  flowers,  or  sweets. 

6.30  A.M.  Rise. 

7.0  Dust  dining-room  and  drawing-room,  water  and 

wash  all  plants,  arrange  flower-vases  and  put 
out  all  dessert,  make  servants'  and  own  bed, 
tidy  own  bedroom, 

9.0  Pour  out  all  cofieie  and  tea  and  cocoa,  help  with 

serving  breakfast. 
1 0.0  Make  all  single  beds,  help  maid  with  double  ones 

(about    twenty-two    bedrooms,     two    houses 
adjoining).    Dust    all    bedrooms,    superintend 
maid  with  all  upstairs  work  and  turning  out  of 
rooms,  give  out  all  linen,  see  to  sorting  same. 
12.0    M.       Mend  all  torn  linen,  interview  guests  for  rooms. 

i.o  P.M.     Help  serve  lunch,  give  out  and  check  all  beer  and 
stout  sold. 

2.0  till  4.0.    Free  to  go  out  or  rest. 

4.0  Cut  up  all  cakes  for  tea,  and  hand  round  tea  with 

maid  in  drawing-room. 

5.30  Mending. 

6.30  Time  allowed  myself  to  change  for  dinner. 

7.0  Serve' soup,  vegetables,  and  sweets. 

8.0  Entertain  in  drawing-room,  singing  and  accom- 

panying   songs,    arrange   card-tables,    talk   to 
gentlemen  in  smoking-room. 
1 1.0  Put  out  all  lights  in  both  houses,  then  allowed  to 

go  to  bed. 


WOMEN  133 

LADY  HELP  AT  RECTORY,  WITH  SIX  IN  FAMILY 
AND   NO    SERVANT 

;^i8  ($90)  salary  a  year. 
I  shilling,  laundry  weekly. 

6.0  A.M.     Rise. 

6.30  Clean  big  kitchen  range,  clean  two  sitting-room 

grates,  sweep  two  big  rooms,  and  dust. 
9.0  Cook  breakfast  (hot),  lay  cloth,  serve,  clear  away, 

lo.o  Make  beds  with  lady,  empty  toilets,  sweep  and 

dust  four  bedrooms. 
ii.o  Cook  and  prepare  hot  lunch,  wash  all  vegetables, 

just  dug  out  of  garden,  clean  windows  inside 

which  needed  doing,  clean  silver  and  brass  in 

sitting-rooms,  clean  door-step  every  other  day. 
12.0    M.      Tidy  up  kitchen  before  lunch,  wash  over  kitchen 

with  mop,  also  scullery  (stone  floors),  wash 

hearth. 
12.30  P.M.  Lay  lunch  and  serve. 
1.30  Clear  lunch  away  and  wash  up,  lady  helping  to 

dry  up. 
2.15  Time  allowed  to  tidy  up  and  have  rest. 

3.45  Get  tea  for  four,  clear  away,  and  wash  up. 

6.0  Bathe  and  put  little  boy  to  bed,  get  supper  for 

same  and  his  little  brother. 
7,0  Prepare  hot  supper  for  four. 

8.0  Serve  supper,  clear  away,  and  wash  up. 

9.0  Put  hot  bottles  in  four  bedrooms, 

9.30  Finished  work  ;  could  go  to  bed  if  I  Uked, 


134  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

LADY  HELP  AT  HOUSE,  WHERE  NO  SERVANT  IS 

KEPT 

Five  in  family,  parents,  one  little  girl  of  five,  twins  ten  weeks 

old,  in  delicate  health. 

^12  ($60)  a  year. 

6.30  A.M.   Rise. 

7.0  Make  and  take  up  early  tea  to  bedroom,  dress  little 

girl. 
8.30  Sweep  dining-room,  dust,  and  lay  cloth. 

9.0  Look  after  twins  through  breakfast,  have  mine  as 

best  could,  also  attend  little  girl. 
lo.o  Help  both  twins  get  ready,  make  beds,  dust  and 

sweep  four  bedrooms,  empty  toilets,  tidy  bath- 
room, take  all  three  children  out,  babies  in  pram 

(perambulator). 
12.30  P.M.    Bring  children  home,  make  bottles,  lay  luncheon 

on  cloth. 
1 .0  Look  after  three  children  at  lunch. 

3.0  Take  three  children  out,  have  entire  charge  of 

three. 
4.0  Get  tea,  make  bottles,  take  children  out  for  short 

time,  do  shopping. 
6.0  Put  babies  and  little  girl  to  bed,  give  them  bottles* 

7.0  Get  supper  and  lay  cloth,  clear  away  and  wash  up, 

listen  to  babies  the  rest  of  the  evening,  make 

their  bottles. 
ii.o  Could  go  to  bed.    Had  one  twin  in  my  room  aU 

night,  had  to  attend  to  it  and  make  bottle 

every  two  hours  through  the  night ;  baby  slept 

very  badly. 


WOMEN  135 

LADY  HELP  AT  PRIVATE  HOUSE  AT  BLACKHEATH, 

WITH  PARENTS  AND  TWO  CHILDREN, 

NO   SERVANTS 

l20  ($100)  salary  a  year. 

6.0  A.M.     Rise. 

6.30  Take  up  early  morning  tea,  sweep  dining-room 

and  hall,  clean  kitchen,  light  fire,  clean  grate, 
cook  hot  breakfast,  light  copper  on  Mondays, 
and  fill  same. 

8.30  Serve  breakfast. 

9.30  Clear  breakfast  and  wash  up. 

lo.o  Empty    toilets,    dust    stairs    and    landing    and 

bath-room,  sweep  and  dust  four  bedrooms,  dust 
drawing-room. 

1 1,0  Take  children  out  to  do  shopping. 

12.0    M.      Prepare  and  cook  hot  lunch,  make  puddings  for 
hot  supper. 

i.o  P.M.     Serve  lunch,  lay  cloth,  clear  away,  wash  up,  and 
make  tea. 

3.0  Time  allowed  to  tidy  and  wash  myself. 

3.45  Get  tea,  clear  away  and  wash  up,  ironing  to  be 

done, 

6.0  Take  children  for  walk,  get  their  supper. 

7.30  Cook  supper,  lay  cloth,  and  wash  up. 

9.0  Work  finished,  go  to  bed. 


136  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

LADY   HELP  AT   HOTEL   IN   LONDON 

;^26  ($130)  salary  a  year. 
I  shilling,  laundry  weekly. 

7.0  A.M.     Rise. 

7.30  Dust  dining-room,  drawing-room  and  hall,   see 

to  flower- vases,  help  maid  carry  up  all  break- 
fasts from  basement  to  dining-room,  varying 
in  number,  clear  in  between,  and  keep  tables 
quite  tidy  and  freshly  laid. 
10.30  Go  upstairs  with  maid,  make  all  beds  by  myself, 

fill  jugs,  tidy  bathroom,  dust  and  sweep  ten 
bedrooms. 

12.20  P.M.    Tidy  for  lunch,  help  maid  lay  luncheon  cloth, 
[carry  up  some  trays. 

i.o  P.M.     Wait  on  guests  at  lunch. 

2.0  Clear  away  lunch  and  wash  silver,  knives,  and  glass, 

3.0  Mend  torn  linen,  answer  front  door-bell,  shopping. 

4.0  Lay  and  get  tea,  usually  two  meals  of  tea  at  differ- 

ent times,  then  mend  linen  until  six  o'clock. 
6.30  Help  maid  lay  dinner-cloth. 

7.0  Bring  each  separate  course  from  kitchen  upstairs, 

wait  on  guests  in  dining-room. 

8.0  Wash  up  silver,  knives,  and  glass. 

8.45  Finished  ;  go  home. 


WOMEN  137 

LADY  HELP  AT  LADIES'  HOSTEL  FOR  WAR  WORKERS. 
DAILY   COOK    KEPT 

£18  ($90)  salary  a  year. 

6.0  A.M.     Rise. 

6.30  Fill  big  tea  oven,  make  ready  morning  tea,  lay 

breakfast  for  eighteen,  cut  up  four  plates  of 

bread  and  butter. 

7.30  First  breakfast  for  seven. 

8.30  Rest,  have  breakfast,  serve  and  wait  on  every 

one,  hand  cups  round. 

9.30  Empty  all  toilets,  fill  all  jugs  in  fifteen  bedrooms, 

cubicles  mostly,  sweep  and  dust  bedrooms,  sweep 
stairs  (four  flights). 

12.0  M.      Lay  luncheon-cloths. 

i.o  P.M.     Serve  luncheon  and  wait  on  twenty  people. 

2.0  Clear  away  luncheon. 

3.0  Wash  up  silver,  glass,  and  knives. 

3.20  Time  allowed  for  rest  and  to  tidy  myself. 

4.0  Get  tea  for  seven  people. . 

5.30  Wash  up  tea-things. 

6.0  Lay  cloth  for  twenty  for  evening  meal ;  meal 

lasts  till  9  P.M. 

9.0  Wash  up, 

lo.o  Go  to  bed. 


138  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


y 
LADY   WAITRESS   AT   ARMY   PAY   OFFICERS' 

MESS 

Ten  shillings  salary  a  week.    Had  to  pay  four  shillings  a  week 
for  bedroom  out  of  it ;  only  to  work  from  Monday  to  Friday. 

9.0  A.M.  Help  the  cook  prepare  all  puddings,  rub  bread- 
crumbs, chop  suet,  etc.,  peel  all  vegetables, 
three  or  four  different  sorts. 

11.30  Put  up  several  big  hospital  tables,  arrange  all 

chairs,  etc.,  carry  down  everything  for  cloth 
from  kitchen  down  a  yard,  with  no  protection 
from  rain  or  snow,  to  a  hall  let  for  the  purpose. 

i.o  P.M.  Carry  down  all  courses  for  hot  lunch,  clear  away 
everything,  back  again  to  kitchen,  wait  on 
of&cers  at  lunch.  ' 

3.0  Sweep  hall  and  cloak-room,  remove  everjrthing 

from  hall,  take  down  tables,  sweep  kitchen  and 
passage,  help  cook  with  all  the  washing  up. 

6.0  Usually  finished  ;    pay  breaks. 


WOMEN  139 

TEMPORARY   HELP  AT  A  LODGING-HOUSE  AT 
BRIGHTON,    WHERE    MAID    IS    KEPT 

Seven  shillings  sixpence  ($1.80)  weekly  and  tips. 

6.30  A.M.      Rise. 
7.0  Take  up  early  tea  for  five  people,  hot  water  to 

carry  up  for  seven  or  eight,  sweep  two  big  sit- 
ting-rooms, and  dust,  lay  breakfast-cloths  in 

both  rooms  (different  floors). 
9.0  Take  up  breakfast  for  seven  people  in  one  room 

and  ten  in  the  other.     Get  breakfast  for  staff 

and  take  in. 
10.  Clear  away  breakfasts,   make  beds   with   lady, 

empty  all  toilets,  sweep  and  dust  seven  or  eight 

bedrooms. 
12.15  P.M.    Lay  cloths  in  both  sitting-rooms,  carry  up  lunch, 

clear  away  in  between. 
2.0  Wash  up  silver,  knives,  and  glass. 

3.0  Time  allowed  to  Wjash  and  tidy. 

3.45  Get  tea  for  both  sitting-rooms,  also  staff's  tea, 

wash  up,  and  clear  away. 
6.0  Take  up  hot  water  to  bedrooms,  turn  down  all 

beds,  empty  toilets,  and  fill  jugs. 
7.0  Lay  cloths  for  supper,  clear  away,  and  wash  up 

silver  knives  and  forks, 
lo.o  Finished  ;  go  to  bed. 

Seven  shillings  and  sixpence,  and  "  finished  ;  go  to  bed  " — 
the  Woman's  Movement  is  in  those  words. 


140  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

England's  Policewomen 

Long  before  the  war  the  women  had  proved  their 
case,  but  the  door  remained  bolted.  It  was  the  war 
that  broke  down  the  door,  and  let  a  rush  of  women 
through  into  industries  and  professions.  In  a  few 
months  they  altered  the  consciousness  of  England 
and  won  their  spiritual  freedom.  The  vote,  industrial 
equality,  control  of  their  life,  will  inevitably  follow. 
There  are  six  hundred  thousand  of  them  making  shells. 
An  entire  military  hospital  has  been  placed  in  their 
control  and  under  the  irexclusive  management— doctors, 
surgeons,  orderhes,  messengers,  superintendents. ^  That 
was  done  by  the  War  Office,  which  has  never  till  recently 
been  a  radical  innovator  in  England.  The  War  Office 
is  now  issuing  requests  for  women  doctors.  It  finds 
them  as  steady  in  emergency,  as  delicate  in  nice  manipu- 
lation, as  their  brothers.  The  old  cant  about  physio- 
logical barriers  has  been  broken  down  by  the  pressure 
of  a  million  casualties.  Women  are  driving  heavy 
trucks,  running  elevators  and  trams,  even  managing 
places  of  business,  including  a  bank. 

As  yet  it  is  in  large  part  the  same  millions  of  women 
who  were  earning  wages  before  the  war  that  have 
taken  possession  of  the  new  activities.  Probably  not 
more  than  five  hundred  thousand  women  have  stepped 
over  from  actual  idleness  into  the  day's  work.  But 
half  a  million  is  a  large  increase,  and  that  half-million 
are  only  the  vanguard  of  the  army  that  will  be  con- 
scripted by  England's  need  of  every  adult  for  increased 

*Dr.  Louisa  Anderson  and  Dr.  Flora  Murray  are  in  charge  of  thia 
London  military  hospital  with  575  beds. 


WOMEN  .  141 

production.  The  significance  of  the  change  does 
not  lie  as  yet  in  the  number  of  previously  unemployed 
women  who  have  entered  wage-earning  occupations. 
The  significance  lies  in  the  new  professions  and  the 
processes  of  industry  which  they  have  taken  over. 
It  Hes  in  the  work  once  closed  to  them,  which  is  now 
opened  for  all  time.  A  measure  of  freedom  has  been 
won  that  never  existed  before.  Their  right  to  play 
a  part  in  the  industrial  and  professional  world  had  been 
challenged.  Their  presence  in  the  modern  economic 
world  had  been  resented.  Inside  of  three  years  woman 
has  ceased  to  be  a  question,  and  has  become  an  accepted 
fact. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  women  who  are  helping  to  carry  on  industry 
while  the  young  men  fight  were  organized  and  engin- 
eered by  new-comers,  that  a  spontaneous  uprising 
took  place.  The  women  who  led  the  new  movement 
into  hospitals,  munitions,  the  tram-cars,  and  the  police 
were  the  seasoned  executive  women  who  had  long  been 
successful  wage-earning  workers  in  nursing  and  school 
teaching,  women  who  had  long  fought  for  social  reform 
in  labour  conditions,  housing  and  the  care  of  children. 
The  amazing  alteration  in  the  economic  and  social 
position  of  women  in  England  is  not  the  work  of 
amateurs.  It  is  the  sudden  ripening  of  an  immensely 
laborious,  painfully  slow  growth. 

Radicals  have  played  the  same  part  in  the  woman's 
movement  that  they  have  played  in  the  labour  move- 
ment. It  is  not  that  the  mass  agrees  with  them  or 
likes  them  or  follows  them ;   but  they  have  clarified 


142  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  given  a  coherence  to  vague  subconscious  desires 
of  an  inarticulate  community.  They  have  presented 
a  sharply  etched  programme  to  a  blind  urge.  Their 
clear-cut  demands  give  the  movement  a  coherence,  a 
cutting  edge.  But  those  demands  are  not  the  woman's 
movement.  They  are  merely  the  instruments  with 
which  it  can  w^ork  its  will.  When  it  has  received  its 
instruments,  it  will  then  proceed  to  do  its  work. 

To  change  the  figure,  it  is  easy  to  see  the  portion 
of  the  iceberg  that  is  above  the  water  and  visibly 
heaving  down  upon  our  man-made,  man-favouring 
institutions.  But  seven-eighths  of  the  mass  is  below 
the  surface.  The  genius  of  the  woman's  movement 
lies  deeply  submerged  under  surface  revolt,  economic 
injustice,  and  resentment  at  man's  unconscious  scorn 
for  the  female  mentality.  The  genius  of  the  woman's 
movement  lies  in  the  imperious  demands  of  her  nature 
for  worthy  expression.  Industry,  like  the  suffrage, 
is  a  means  by  which  she  achieves  her  personal  freedom 
and  equality.  It  is  a  spiritual  condition  which  she  is 
seeking,  not  alone  a  new  activity.  Fame  and  money 
are  not  the  supreige  incentives  to  her  that  they  are  to 
man.  For  that  reason  her  entrance  into  politics 
and  work  offers  the  promise  of  a  humanized  industry 
and  a  better  state. 

My  own  personal  impression  in  the  first  half-year 
of  the  war  was  that  the  women  were  quicker  to  get 
started  than  the  men.  There  was  almost  a  scramble 
on  the  part  of  women  of  leisure  to  volunteer  for  rehef 
work.  The  women  solved  the  problem  of  Belgian 
refugees  by  taking  them  into  their  homes,  by  organizing 


WOMEN  143 

village  colonies  for  them,  by  finding  them  work.  A 
group  of  women  saw  the  war  in  its  meaning  to  Great 
Britain,  the  costliness  of  waging  it,  the  immensity  of 
the  effort  which  would  have  to  be  put  forth,  long 
before  the  general  public  opinion  of  England  was 
awakened. 

Women  have  revealed  adaptability  in  their  war 
work.  They  have  swung  swiftly  to  meet  new  condi- 
tions and  solve  unexpected  situations .  A  good  instance 
of  the  service  they  have  done  England  is  that  of  their 
organization  of  a  police  force.  War  conditions  had 
created  certain  perils  to  the  community.  The  absence 
of  the  father  away  at  the  front  is  not  a  benefit  to  the 
children  at  home.  Boys  were  running  wild  and 
thieving.  Other  boys  were  being  overworked. 
Immense  numbers  of  men  on  leave  in  great  cities  are  a 
menace  to  the  well-being  of  excitable  girls.  War 
creates  its  own  atmosphere,  and  there  were  both  a 
looseness  and  a  tension,  strange  combination,  in  the 
life  of  khaki-clad  England.  A  group  of  women  saw 
the  peril  and  had  a  remedy.  Led  by  Miss  Allen  and 
Miss  Damer  Dawson,  they  formed  the  Women  Police 
Service  in  August  of  1914.  There  were  half  a  dozen 
of  them.  The  members  have  grown  to  six  hundred 
and  fifty,  and  they  are  now  serving  not  only  London, 
but  Grantham,  Bath,  Carlisle,  Oxford,  Bexhill, 
Reading,  Birkenhead,  Huddersfield,  Southampton, 
Glasgow,  Hull,  Folkestone,  Wimbledon,  and  Rich- 
mond. There  are  two  hundred  and  fifty  vacancies 
waiting  for  trained  policewomen.  Their  duties  are 
patrolhng,  attendance  at  police  courts,  home  visiting, 


144  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

supervision  of  music-halls,  cinemas,  public  dance- 
halls,  and  inspection  of  lodging-houses.  They  take 
the  depositions  of  children  and  women,  watch  the 
parks,  stations,  and  docks,  meet  Belgian  refugees. 
At  certain  munition  factories  they  keep  the  women's 
gate,  searching  the  women,  and  permitting  no  stranger 
to  enter. 

Their  uniform  is  a  blue  military  tunic,  divided  skirt, 
riding-breeches,  riding-bowlers,  and  top-boots.  The 
chiefs  wear  peaked  caps.  Their  organization  is  one 
of  chief  officer,  superintendents,  inspectors,  clerical 
staff,  sergeants,  and  constables. 

When  they  made  their  start,  fifty  of  them  were 
drilled  by  a  sergeant  of  police  in  a  back  yard  of  the 
suburb  of  Hornsey.  The  first  town  they  worked  in 
officially  had  a  diocese  of  twenty-five  thousand  inhabi- 
tants and  thirty  thousand  soldiers.  Their  work  from 
the  beginning  has  been  more  preventive  than  repres- 
sive. They  handle  trouble  before  it  becomes  a  court 
case  as  well  as  after.    They  suggest  solutions. 

Commandant  Damer  Dawson,  the  chief  officer, 
speaking  of  Leicester  Square,  the  very  heart  of  the  night 
life  of  London,  said : 

Take,  for  instance,  Leicester  Square.  You  hear 
people  say  that  Leicester  Square  is  infested  by 
*'  night  hawks  "  and  bullies  and  so  forth,  and  that 
it  is  also  infested  by  abominable  women.  No  abuse 
has  been  spared.  It  has  been  poured  upon  the 
women  who  make  a  trade  and  living  out  of  immoral- 
ity, but  very  few  have  said  a  word  about  the  other 
sex,  which  is  bound  to  be  connected  with  the  hfe 
of  the  London  streets.    One  might  think   that 


WOMEN  145 

there  are  only  two  classes  of  people  on  the  London 
streets,  the  police  and  the  prostitutes,  and  that  the 
rest  are  innocent  people.  However,  it  is  not  for 
me  to  give  you  a  lecture  on  the  state  of  the  London 
streets,  except  inasmuch  as  it  touches  our  police 
w^ork  and  our  experiences  night  after  night. 

We  find  that  things  have  very  much  changed 
since  the  war  began,  and  are  changing  very  quickly. 
Therefore  you  cannot  possibly  write  to  the  papers 
or  argue  about  any  social  condition  which  existed 
even  a  few  months  ago.  You  must  go  straight  to 
the  streets  night  after  night  and  follow  up  cases  as 
you  find  them  ;  and  this  is  what  you  find.  There 
are  bullies  there,  both  men  and  women  bullies, 
but  not  to  the  same  extent  that  there  used  to  be, 
for  this  reason ;  you  have  to  deal  with  modern 
women  on  the  streets,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
temptations  thrown  before  these  young  women 
from  the  time  that  they  are  "  flappers  **  is  enormous. 
Mind  you,  they  are  light-hearted,  aching  for  excite- 
ment, and  they  are  non-moral.  That  is  the  result 
of  social  conditions.  They  have  no  moral  training  ; 
their  parents  give  them  none,  and  they  have  very 
little  at  school,  and  they  have  very  little  religious 
enthusiasm.  Therefore  they  come  out  into  the 
world  non-moral.  Nevertheless,  they  are  exceed- 
ingly human,  and  determined  to  have  a  good  time 
at  all  costs.  They  are  mostly  girls  who  have 
tasted  the  bitterness  of  life,  girls  among  the  five 
millions  for  whom  there  may  not  be  a  husband,  and 
therefore  they  have  got  to  make  their  own  living. 

Then  there  come  thousands  of  men,  with  hundreds 
and  thousands  in  money  to  spend,  and  the  young 
women  pay  the  price.  Do  you  think  they  know  the 
price,  nine  out  of  ten  of  them,  the  disease  and  the 
misery  that  are  going  to  ensue  ?  Of  course  they 
do  not  know. 


146  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  policewomen  are  able  to  touch  a  certain 
fringe  of  this  work.  None  of  us  can  claim  anything 
more ;  but  we  are  able  to  act  as  a  tremendous 
deterrent.  In  the  first  place,  certain  streets  which  we 
patrol  at  nights  we  are  able  to  keep  absolutely  clear. 
Young  officers,  boys  of  seventeen  and  eighteen, 
who  have  hardly  left  their  mothers,  are  taken  to 
these  streets  by  women  who  ought  to  know  better  ; 
but  when  they  see  the  policewomen  they  bolt. 
Ouro  is  only  patchwork,  but  it  is  a  help.  In  a  great 
many  cases  we  are  able  to  get  hold  of  the  young 
girls  and  to  save  them.  Young  girls  and  young  men 
get  to  know  us,  and  we  move  them  on.  The  very 
fact  that  a  policewoman  is  in  the  streets  acts  as  a 
potent  moral  shame  to  what  is  going  on. 

I  was  very  struck  with  an  illustration  of  this 
which  occurred  the  other  day. 

"  Are  they  friends  of  yours  ?  "  said  the  police- 
woman to  a  couple  of  young  fellows  who  had  taken 
hold  of  two  girls. 

"  How  dare  you  I  "  said  one  of  the  men,  quite 
furious.  "  Of  course  I  know  them ;  they  are 
cousins." 

"  I  am  the  wife  of  an  officer,"  said  the  police- 
woman, "  and  as  you  are  an  officer  wearing  the 
king's  uniform  I  take  your  word  for  it." 

Ten  minutes  later  the  young  officer  overtook  her 
and  said,  "  They  were  not  my  cousins,  and  I  thought 
you  would  like  to  know  I  am  going  home." 

Any  person  of  experience  reading  that  knows  that 
Miss  Dawson  and  her  co-workers  have  a  broader  and 
more  fundamental  knowledge  of  our  modern  social 
problems  than  the  average  male  policeman.  The 
only  police  method  in  deahng  with  the  '*  social  evil " 
has  been  that  of  repression  and  harrying,  interwoven 


WOMEN  147 

with  graft,  and  it  hasn't  advanced  us  any  in  the 
direction  of  a  solution. 

Take  another  instance.  A  serious  fight  was  taking 
place  between  two  drunken  soldiers  who  should  have 
been  in  camp.  The  men  had  taken  off  their  coats 
to  fight.  The  policewomen  cleared  the  crowd,  separated 
the  fighters,  persuaded  them  to  put  on  their  coats, 
shake  hands,  and  return  to  camp.  The  old  orthodox 
police  method  for  such  a  fracas  was  a  clubbing.  The 
only  test  of  a  method  is.  Does  it  work  ?  The  new 
women's  way  works.  Success  has  been  their  answer 
to  tradition. 

These  new  women  officers  have  cut  their  way  through 
red  tape  and  obtained  the  power  to  act  decisively  and 
promptly.  The  military  authorities  have  given  them 
the  right  of  entry  into  houses  in  certain  restricted 
districts,  so  that  they  can  take  hold  of  a  situation  before 
a  rumpus  sets  in.  The  policewomen  observed  a 
drunken  soldier  enter  a  house  which  they  knew  to  be 
occupied  by  a  woman  whose  husband  had  just  left  for 
the  front.  This  house  had  been  previously  suspected 
by  them.  They  fetched  the  military  picket,  who 
came  at  once  to  the  house,  and  with  some  difficulty 
forced  an  entrance.  The  soldier  was  caught  and 
arrested.  Several  children  found  in  the  house  in  a 
dirty  and  diseased  condition  were  taken  care  of  by 
the  policewomen  and  handed  over  to  the  inspector. 
Before  the  picket  could  enter,  the  woman  escaped  by 
means  of  a  trap-door  which  connected  with  three  other 
houses. 

These  peace  patrols  have  dug  themselves  into  the 


148  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

community.  One  of  them  is  a  probation  officer. 
The  poHce  use  her  to  interview  women  who  are  being 
'*  summoned."  There  was  an  entire  city  street  in  a 
row,  hke  one  of  our  before-the  war  Southern  vendettas. 
Half  the  street  had  summoned  the  other  half  to  court. 
The  policewoman  marched  the  whole  street  back  home, 
and  settled  the  case  out  of  court. 

A  constant  protective  watch  is  kept  over  the  lives 
of  children.  From  time  to  time  reports  have  reached 
the  policewomen  of  young  children  of  school  age  work- 
ing excessive  hours  during  the  school  week.  It  was 
decided  to  approach  the  headmasters  of  several  schools, 
who  welcomed  help  in  the  matter  and  promised  detailed 
reports.  In  one  district  they  found  twenty-four 
paper-boys  with  hours  varying  from  yl-  to  25  per  school 
week.  The  beginning  hour  in  the  morning  seems  to 
be  from  6  to  6.30  a.m.,  so  that  the  majority  of  these 
children  will  be  working  without  proper  attention  to 
food  and  habits.  Many  may  go  to  school  without 
any  regular  breakfast.  Of  these,  two  are  eight  years 
old,  one  getting  up  at  six  o'clock,  the  other  at  6.30  a.m.  ; 
one  of  them  working  12 J  hours,  the  other  yi  hours. 

Twenty-two  boys  take  milk  around.  Their  ages 
vary  from  8  to  13,  their  hours  from  yi  to  I2j-  per  school 
week,  beginning  work  from  4.30  to  6  o'clock  a.m.  One 
boy  of  8  works  20  hours  a  week  beginning  at  4.30  a.m. 
Two  boys,  13,  house-boys,  work  7^  hours.  Two  boys 
work  in  coal-yards  ;  one  is  13  and  works  19  hours  per 
school  week,  beginning  at  8  a.m. ;  the  other  boy, 
aged  II,  helps  his  father,  and  works  5  hours  per 
school  week. 


WOMEN 


149 


The  question  of  child-labour  presents  itself  as  one 
of  the  root  problems  of  the  hour  for  local  as  well  as  for 
national  authorities.  The  police-v/omen  see  some  of 
the  results  of  boy  fatigue  and  malnutrition  in  the 
listless,  uninterested  young  people  standing  and 
loitering  about,  ready  to  follow  after  any  new  excite- 
ment. 

There  are  towns  v/hereno  by-laws  exist  regulating 
the  employment  of  children  under  fourteen.  The 
question  has  been  before  the  education  authorities 
for  many  years,  and  the  enforcing  of  certain  drafted 
by-laws  is  likely  to  remain  in  status  quo  owing  to  war 
conditions.  Employers  prefer  children  to  elderly 
labour,  and  many  parents  regard  their  offspring  as 
financial  assets.  The  work  of  these  women  guardians 
will  result  in  a  better  protection  of  child  life,  because 
they  have  exposed  the  evil  conditions.  The  police- 
woman is  an  official  mother.  She  does  not  use  physical 
violence.  She  talks  with  the  boys  about  gambling 
and  smoking  and  thieving.  She  warns  the  girls. 
There  are  no  fixed  posts.  Often  she  covers  an  area  of 
two  and  a  half  miles,  as  in  the  borough  of  Paddington. 

War  has  let  loose  the  high  spirits  of  boys,  and 
some  of  them,  with  the  added  stimulus  of  American 
films,  have  taken  to  the  Hfe  of  pirates.  London  streets 
are  a  tumbling  sea  of  adventure,  where  grocers'  carts 
are  the  helpless  frigates  to  be  manned  and  pillaged. 
The  new  women  "  cops  "  pull  the  boys  of  the  carts, 
and  advise  them  to  let  the  tea  and  jam  travel  on 
unmolested. 

This  strange  excitement  of  war  touches  the  imagina- 


150  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tion  till  it  sees  placid  planets  as  the  product  of  Ger- 
man chemists.  During  one  of  the  recent  ZeppeHn 
raids  on  the  east  coast,  poHcewomen  working  in  the 
town  were  instructed  by  the  authorities  to  patrol  the 
streets  and  do  their  best  to  prevent  panic  or  crowds 
collecting.  On  coming  upon  a  knot  of  excited  people 
at  a  street  corner  the  policewomen  assured  them  that 
there  was  no  further  danger,  as  the  Zeppelins  had  left 
and  that  every  one  could  return  home  in  safety.  Some 
soldiers  remonstrated,  and  said  it  was  cruel  to  ask  the 
women  to  take  their  children  home.  They  pointed 
to  a  light  in  the  sky,  which  they  declared  to  be  a  bomb 
dropping.  The  women  wept  and  begged  not  to  be 
sent  home.  The  policewomen  calmed  them,  explaining 
that  what  the  soldiers  saw  was  no  bomb,  but  the  planet 
Venus  rising  in  the  sky,  and  persuaded  the  crowd  to 
disperse  quietly  and  the  parents  to  take  their  tired 
children  home. 

All  this  soothing,  daring  work  results  from  stiff 
training.  These  women  go  through  two  months  of 
instruction  in  drill,  first  aid,  special  legal  acts  relating 
to  women  and  children,  and  the  procedure  and  rules 
of  evidence  in  police  courts.  They  are  shown  how  to 
stand,  to  walk,  and  attain  dignity  of  carriage,  for  a 
slouchy  woman  carries  no  authority.  They  are  taught 
to  talk  clearly  and  avoid  mumbling,  so  that  their 
evidence  will  convince  the  court.  They  are  told  off 
to  bring  in  reports  on  a  tour  of  the  streets  :  "  Come 
back  and  tell  what  you  have  seen."  This  develops 
accuracy  and  power  of  observation.  Patrolling  in  the 
public  parks  calls  for  patience  to  endure  the  monotony 


WOMEN  151 

of  long,  watchful  waiting,  keen  insight  to  detect 
undesirable  citizens  who  will  endanger  children  at 
play,  psychological  skill  in  knowing  the  mental 
criminal;  who  works  by  stealth  and  loathes  publicity. 

Street  work  demands  knowledge  of  the  social  features 
of  the  district,  what  to  do  with  diseased  and  sick  per- 
sons, where  to  send  drunks.  The  authority  must  be 
broad-minded,  using  a  warning  word  instead  of  arrest 
where  the  offence  is  petty. 

Oversight  in  factories  requires  an  officer  type  of 
woman  who  will  keep  the  women  smart  and  good 
tempered,  who  will  deal  justly  with  grumbles,  and 
never  bear  a  personal  grievance. 

The  policewoman  is  different  from  the  rescue-worker, 
the  "  missionary,"  and  the  social  worker.  She  is  a 
practical  executive  who  cannot  long  delay  with  the 
one  case,  for  there  lies  on  her  beat  a  mile  of  streets 
with  a  dozen  other  cases.  She  must  show  self-control 
and  the  willingness  to  hand  over  the  problem  to  other 
agencies.  Where  her  function  ceases,  there  the  mis- 
sion of  the  social  worker  begins.  In  the  ranks  are 
nurses,  medical  women,  school-teachers,  women  from 
government  service,  sanitary  inspectors.  Several 
matrons  of  infirmaries  and  hospitals  are  making  good 
head  ofiicers  because  they  are  accustomed  to  leadership. 
The  ages  of  policewomen  run  from  twenty-five  to 
forty-five.  Between  thirty  and  forty  is  the  best  age, 
because  the  woman  is  self-reliant,  has  conquered  her 
hysterias,  and  is  in  full  command  of  her  powers. 
Thes$, women  have  succeeded  because  they  have  known 
how  to  avoid  interference  with  the  province  of  the  men 


152  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

police.  They  have  practised  a  division  of  work. 
There  was  a  city  where  a  particular  wooded  lane  had 
been  a  hanging-out  place  for  fourteen  years.  Con- 
stables and  the  bishop  had  been  powerless  to  alter 
conditions.  Four  policewomen  walked  the  length  of 
it,  spoke  to  thirty-six  couples,  waited  with  backs 
turned  till  they  had  accepted  the  suggestion,  and 
cleaned  the  place  up. 

"Which  of  you  is  the  mother  of  the  baby  in  the 
pink  cap  who  has  been  left  outside  in  the  rain  for 
twenty  minutes  ?  "  asked  a  policewoman  of  a  group 
drinking  in  a  public-house.  The  mother  had  to  come, 
because  the  opinion  of  the  other  guests  was  with  the 
officer. 

Two  girls  were  reported  by  the  police  authorities  to 
the  policewomen  as  missing,  one  of  them  for  fifteen 
weeks  and  the  other  for  over  five,  and  were  suspected 
of  living  in  some  fields  near  a  large  camp.  The 
policewomen  on  bicycles  searched  for  them  for  two 
days,  and  finally  discovered  them  in  a  filthy  and 
starving  condition  and  took  them  back  to  their  parents. 
They  have  since  applied  to  the  policewomen  to  put 
them  in  touch  with  a  home  which  deals  with  such  cases. 

England  is  a  mixed  democracy  much  like  ours,  with 
fine  elements  and  ignoble  elements.  But  these  clear- 
eyed  women  of  the  police  force,  like  the  nurses  and 
doctors,  gave  me  an  assurance  that  an  immense, 
imtapped  resource  is  there  to  renew  life  after  the 
wreckage  of  these  years. 

War  has  discovered  them.  Peace  must  continue 
to  make  use  of  them.    England  has  need  of  them. 


WOMEN  153 

Undoubtedly  to  the  student  of  peoples  there  was 
much  that  was  dreary  under  the  beauty  and  peace  of 
the  old  England  that  existed  before  1914 ;  but  what 
was  most  oppressive  was  the  condition  of  women. 
Drunkenness  and  militancy  were  only  two  symptoms 
of  a  disease  that  was  eating  out  the  heart  of  an  ancient 
civilization.  Women  were  suppressed.  They  carried 
the  consciousness  of  being  caught  in  a  social  system  that 
allowed  no  free  play  for  instinct,  intelligence,  and 
energy,  a  system  that  forbade  useful  work,  that 
silenced  self-expression,  that  doomed  the  average 
middle-class  woman  to  idleness  under  the  mask  of 
respectability,  and  the  lower-class  woman  to  drudgery. 
There  comes  a  time  with  a  theory  when  action  is  the 
only  test,  and  British  women  have  proceeded  to  put 
into  practice  their  claims.  I  use  the  policewomen  as 
an  illustration  of  the  new  activity  which  has  touched 
all  classes.  What  I  wish  to  show  is  not  their  isolated 
performance.  What  they  have  done  is  only  one 
instance  of  the  release  of  energy  which  has  won 
spiritual  freedom  for  the  women  of  England. 


CHAPTER  IV 
IRELAND 

IRELAND  OF  THE  FOUR  GREEN  FIELDS 

I  THINK  that  the  most  helpful  view  I  can  give  of  the 
Irish  question  is  a  simple  record  of  my  brief  visit, 
with  the  talks  I  had  with  Irishmen.  I  have  no  solu- 
tions,  but  I  have  a  real  sympathy,  and  I  believe  that 
the  way  to  better  relationship  lies  in  the  creation  of  an 
atmosphere  of  sympathy,  which  will  result  in  intel- 
lectual understanding.  I  write  nothing  here  in  a 
spirit  of  contention.  I  trust  that  no  offence  will  be 
taken. 

The  Irish  RebeUion  had  seemed  to  me  a  piece  of 
strange,  mystical  futility.  The  failure  of  Ireland 
to  be  stirred  by  the  plight  of  Roman  Catholic  Belgium 
had  seemed  to  me  a  failure  in  ideaUsm.  The  irre- 
concilable Irish  in  America  had  seemed  to  me  a  set 
of  men  "  scrapping  "  volubly  for  the  sake  of  words  and 
dissension. 

I  found  in  Ireland  a  national  aspiration  that  moved 
me  as  the  French  spirit  of  nationality  has  moved  the 
world  for  now  these  three  years.  The  proud  and 
charming  Irish  people,  with  a  culture,  tradition,  litera- 
ture, race,  religion,  natural  geographical  unity,  and 
economic  system  of  their  own,  believe  they  have  the 

154 


IRELAND  155 

right  to  as  full  a  measure  of  self-government  as 
Canada  possesses,  including  control  of  finances.  Sane 
opinion  in  Ireland  is  well  aware  that  in  any  solution 
Ireland  remains  inside  the  federation  of  the  British 
commonwealth ;  but  the  status  toward  which  the 
intelligent  Irish  work  is  that  of  a  self-governing  nation, 
like  the  free  colonies. 

Increasingly  the  present  generation  of  Irishmen 
reahzes  that  if  old-age  pensions,  state  insurance,  land 
purchase,  co-operative  grants,  the  police,  estates  com- 
mission, and  congested-districts  board  have  to  be  paid 
for  by  controlled  government  and  crippled  autonomy, 
the  answer  is  a  refusal  to  accept  their  benefits.  Ireland 
must  pay  her  own  way  if  subsidy  implies  control. 
"  Irish  expenditure  should  be  Umited  by  Irish  revenue.*' 
This  is  one  of  the  matters  in  which  some  of  the  older 
Irish  political  leaders  have  failed  to  represent  the 
younger  element.  ^ 

A  living  element  of  young  Ireland  to-day  is  in 
revolt  against  these  older  leaders.  The  men  who 
have  patiently  and  self-sacrificingly  fought  for  the 
rights  of  Ireland  through  long  years  are  still  in  control 
of  the  Irish  party  at  Westminster.  A  part  of  young 
Ireland  is  as  weary  of  them  as  a  city  state  once  grew 
of  Aristides.  To  debate  the  justice  of  this  state  of 
mind  is  to  multiply  words,  but  not  to  clarify  the 
situation. 

The  young  men  believe  that  the  ideas  in  control  of 
Irish  policy  are  the  ideas  of  old  men  out  of  touch 
with  present  aspiration.  These  young  men  have 
determined  that  their  own  ideas  shall  prevail. 


156  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Tradition  is  the  one  essential  element  in  nationality. 
Tradition  is  the  memory  of  a  common  experience, 
the  deposit  of  a  common  suffering  for  an  idea.  Of 
tradition  Professor  Ramsay  Muir  has  written  : 

The  most  potent  of  all  nation-moulding  factors, 
the  one  indispensable  factor  which  must  be  present 
whatever  else  be  lacking,  is  the  possession  of  a 
common  tradition,  a  memory  of  sufterings  endured 
and  victories  won  in  common,  expressed  in  song 
and  legend,  in  the  dear  names  of  great  personalities 
that  seem  to  embody  in  themselves  the  character 
and  ideals  of  the  nation,  in  the  names  also  of  sacred 
places  wherein  the  national  memory  is  enshrined. 

A  race  of  writers  sprang  up  in  Ireland  who  had  fed 
on  the  ancient  Gaelic  sources.  The  Irish  people 
rediscovered  that  they  came  of  a  race  who  had  elected 
their  chieftains  and  who  had  possessed  the  land  com- 
munally. The  legends  of  poets  and  saints  and  heroes 
were  recalled  to  a  racial  imagination  which  is  responsive, 
and  that  fine  infection  began  to  spread  through  the 
farms  and  cities.  Ireland  is  not  alone  in  this.  She 
is  only  a  sharer  in  a  general  mass  consciousness.  A 
movement  of  nature  has  operated  throughout  the 
modern  world.  No  man  can  trace  its  source  and 
origin.  It  marches  irresistibly  without  visible  leader- 
ship. It  has  taken  control  of  a  dynastic  war,  and  made 
it  a  world  war  of  peoples.  It  draws  the  scattered 
dry  bones  of  Poland  back  into  a  living  organism.  It 
hfted  the  France  of  the  Dreyfus  Trial  into  the  glory  of 
the  Marne  and  Verdun.  It  coalesced  the  quarrelsome 
individualism  of  England  into  the  unified,  victorious. 


IRELAND  157 

socialistic  state.  The  expression  of  this  world  move- 
ment is  local  and  intense  in  Ireland.  What  had  lain 
slumbering  in  Irish  consciousness  began  to  burn  with 
a  bright  flame  of  nationality,  and  all  ,this  emotion  was 
gathering  long  before  "  The  Rebellion."  So  much 
passion  had  to  come  through  into  action.  Some  Irish- 
men saw  their  outlet  in  resistance  to  the  English 
campaign  of  recruiting.  Others,  an  extraordinarily 
large  number,  saw  the  struggle  of  Belgium  as  their 
own  struggle,  and  from  the  four  provinces  of  Ireland, 
from  Great  Britain,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  the 
United  States,  and  Canada,  enlisted.  No  one  knows 
the  exact  number.  From  Ireland  alone,  160,000 
men  came.  From  their  new  homes,  perhaps  an  equal 
number  of  Irishmen  volunteered.  Strong  currents 
moved  in  opposite  directions. 

One  of  the  recruiting  officers  in  Ireland  told  me 
of  the  experience  he  and  his  fellows  had  gone 
through. 

"  One  of  our  men  would  come  to  a  peasant's  cottage. 
The  men  of  the  family  had  been  sent  by  the  women 
into  the  fields.  In  one  case,  the  mother  talkM  with 
the  recruiting  officer,  while  the  grandmother  made 
ready  a  pail  of  boiling  hot  water  to  throw  on  him.  He 
stood  aside  just  in  time.  At  another  cottage  the 
woman  started  for  him  with  a  pair  of  tongs." 

A  still  more  passionate  expression  of  passive  resist- 
ance to  war  recruiting  was  given  in  the  poem  of  "  The 
Suppliant "  (the  suppliant  is  England  pleading  for 
Irish  recruits). 


158  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

*'  When  the  hunger  was  on  us  she  heeded  not — 
She  did  not  grieve  when  our  dead  lay  piled 
Under  the  rank  grave  grasses  to  rot, 
Husband  and  wife  and  child. 

Nay,  nay,  she  is  still  the  same  ;  our  woe 
Knocks  not  at  her  heart,  her  eyes  are  dry  ; 
We  are  but  slaves  in  her  pathway,  so 
She  would  hurry  us  forth  to  die. 

Mothers  of  Ireland,  hold  fast  your  own — 

The  child  you  have  nursed  on  your  bosom  warm. 

Mine  own  is  mine,  and  at  Ireland's  need 
I  shall  send  him  forth  by  her  side  to  stand 
(Blessing  the  day  and  blessing  the  deed) 
With  the  steel  in  his  good  right  hand. 

Speak  loud — that  the  suppliant  Queen  may  know 
Ireland's  soul  is  unconquered  still — • 
Speak  loud — that  the  listening  wind  may  blow 
Your  answer  from  hill  to  hill." 

Then  came  the  Easter  Rising.  Its  occasion  lies 
in  obscure  incidents  which  are  enveloped  in  a  mist  of 
charges  and  countercharges.  But  the  cause  was  in  the 
reawakened  spirit  of  nationality.  The  outbreak  was 
followed  by  the  execution  of  the  Volunteer  leaders 
who  had  taken  part.  What  had  been  the  small  move- 
ment of  Sinn  Fein,  unknown  to  the  immense  majority 
of  the  Irish  people,  spread  rapidly  through  large 
sections  of  the  population. 

To-day  conscription  can  only  be  applied  to  Ireland 
by  exterminating  many  thousands  of  their  finest  young 
men.    "  No  conscription  "  is  to  them  a  sacred  cause. 


IRELAND  159 

It  is  the  expression  of  their  nationaUty — the  same 
cause  for  which  Enghsh  soldiers  are  fighting  at  Ypres 
in  behalf  of  Belgium . 

My  experience  in  Ireland  came  to  focus  one  evening 
when,  with  Robert  Mountsier,  I  attended  a  No-Con- 
scription meeting.  The  first  speaker  had  advocated 
passive  resistance.  He  had  urged  the  young  men  to 
refuse  to  serve.  He  had  told  them  to  be  thrown  into 
prison.  Then  a  young  Irishman  stogd  up,  six  feet  of 
him.  He  was  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  He 
spoke  with  humour  and  fire.  He  told  why  he  and  his 
comrades  had  made  the  famous  Rebellion  of  1916, 
although  they  knew  it  was  hopeless.  He  told  why 
he  and  his  friends  would  come  forward  to  die,  if  con- 
scription were  attempted.    He  said  : 

"  I've  chosen  the  lesser  of  two  evils.  I'll  fight. 
I  don't  expect  a  long  life.  I've  fought  once.  I'll 
fight  again.  I  was  a  Volunteer.  I  foughti^in  Sackville 
Street.  I'm  an  electrician.  I  get  ninepence  ha'penny 
an  hour.  But  I  never  worked  for  ninepence  ha'penny 
as  I  worked  in  Sackville  Street  for  no  pay  at  all.  I 
work  by  the  day,  but  not  too  much.  My  evenings  I 
work  for  Ireland,  and  there  is  no  money  in  that.  I 
belong  to  a  club  in  Dublin. 

'*  I  was  a  prisoner  in  Frongoch  for  three  months. 
They  put  us  in  solitary  confinement  for  three  weeks. 
Solitary  confinement  is  hard  on  the  mind.  But  they 
never  got  to  me.  They  never  got  to  me,  because  I 
knew  I  was  in  it  for  Ireland.  I'll  fight  for  Ireland, 
but  not  for  England. 

"  Go  to  any  country — Australia,  America,  anywhere 


i6o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

in  the  world,  and  they  hate  England.  And  they  hate 
her  for  what  she  has  done  to  Ireland.  They  hate  her 
for  those  seven  hundred  years. 

"  The  reason  we  rose  was  what  we  have  suffered 
for  seven  hundred  years.  We  have  tried  the  way 
the  speaker  tells  us  of.  We  have  been  peaceful.  The 
blood  was  getting  rotten  in  our  veins.  We  needed 
something  to  freshen  us.  The  London  Times 
wrote  about  MacDonagh  and  Pearse  as  if -they  were 
children,  not  knowing  what  they  did.  We  knew  what 
we  were  doing.  I  don't  expect  to  come  out  of  this 
alive.  I  haven't  any  rifle — ^that  is,  not  now.  But 
I  know  where  there  are  a  few.  If  they  put  conscrip- 
tion on  us,  we'll  fight.  We'll  be  fighting  for  Ireland. 
What  use  will  20,000  Irishmen  fighting  for  England 
be  to  them  ?  When  we  were  fighting  for  Ireland, 
we  did  more  work  in  six  days  than  in  twelve  months. 
We  knocked  our  way  through  brick  walls.  We  built 
barricades.  There  was  food,  but  we  didn't  take  time 
to  eat  it.  An  Irishman  works  best  when  he's  working 
for  nothing,  and  when  he  is  working  for  Ireland. 

"  I  am  a  Christian,  a  Roman  Catholic.  I  hate 
bloodshed.  I  saw  a  soldier  go  across  the  street,  when 
we  were  fighting.  I  said  to  the  man  next  me,  *  See 
him.'  He  aimed  his  gun  and  shot  him.  But  I  couldn't 
shoot  the  man.  I  didn't  want  the  sin  on  my  soul. 
We  don't  want  bloodshed.  But  is  there  any  other 
way  ?  We  don't  want  the  insult  of  conscription  put 
on  us." 

The  point  is  not  that  he  rebelled  last  Easter,  but 
that  he  will  rebel  again  if  England  applies  pressure. 


IRELAND  i6i 

Two  thousand  rose  then,  but  twenty  thousand  will 
rise  next  time.  The  rebellion  was  only  a  bloody, 
unimportant  riot,  but  Ireland  to-day  is  in  the  most 
critical  state  since  the  1850's.  England  can  give  a 
lasting  peace,  or  she  can  let  loose  a  slaughter  which 
will  spoil  her  memory  of  the  costly  and  noble  sacrifice 
in  Flanders. 

I  have  a  book  called  "  Songs  and  Poems  of  the 
Rebels,  Who  Fought  and  Died  for  Ireland  in  Easter 
Week,  1916."    One  of  the  songs  reads  : — 

"  They  nailed  their  colours  to  the  mast, 

the  Orange,  White  and  Green, 
A  nobler  set  of  Irishmen  the  world 

has  never  seen : 
They  knew  through  sloth  and  idleness  a 

Nation's  soul  was  lost. 
They  rose  to  save  dear  Ireland's  soul  and 

counted  not  the  cost. 

They  knew  full  well  two  thousand  men — 

they  did  not  number  more — 
Could  never  break  the  tyrant's  chain 

and  drive  him  from  our  shore  ; 
But  this  they  knew,  and  knew  it  well, 

they  would  not  die  in  vain — 
Their  blood  would  save  our  country's 

soul  and  give  her  life  again." 

One  of  the  rebels  as  he  went  to  Sackville  Street 
said  to  a  friend  of  mine,  "  I  am  going  to  the  slaughter  " 
(meaning  his  own  death  and  that  of  his  friends). 

Pearse  was  shot  by  the  military  authorities.    In  his 
last  letter  to  his  mother  he  wrote  : — 
I, 


i62  '        INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

"  You  asked  me  to  write  a  little  poem  which  would 
seem  to  be  said  by  you  about  me.  I  have  written  it, 
and  one  copy  is  in  Arbour  Hill  Barracks,  with  the 
papers,  and  Father  Aloysius  is  taking  charge  of  another 
copy  of  it." 

The  poem  is  called  "  A  Mother  Speaks." 

*'  Dear  Mary,  that  did'st  see  Thy  First-Bom  Son 
Go  forth  to  die  amidst  the  scorn  of  men, 
For  whom  He  died. 

Receive  my  first-born  son  unto  Thy  arms, 
Who  also  had  gone  forth  to  die  for  men. 

And  keep  him  by  Thee,  till  I  come  to  him. 
Dear  Mary,  I  have  shared  Thy  sorrow. 

And  soon  shall  share  Thy  joy." 

One's  opinion  of  these  rebels  is  that  their  final  place 
in  history  will  be  much  like  that  of  the  Russian  revolu- 
tionaries. In  those  men,  Dostoievski  found  a  '*  thirst 
for  swift  achievement."    Of  them  he  wrote  : — 

"A  youth  of  our  last  epoch — ^honest  in  nature, 
desiring  the  truth,  seeking  for  it  and  believing  in  it, 
and  seeking  to  serve  it  at  once  with  all  the  strength  of 
his  soul,  seeking  for  immediate  action,  and  ready  to 
sacrifice  everything,  life  itself,  for  it.  Though  these 
young  men  unhappily  fail  to  understand  that  the 
sacrifice  of  life  is,  in  many  cases,  the  easiest  of  all 
sacrifices,  and  that  to  sacrifice,  for  instance,  five  or 
six  years  of  their  seething  youth  to  hard  and  tedious 
study,  if  only  to  multiply  ten-fold  their  powers  of 
serving  the  truth  and  the  cause  they  have  set  before 
them  as  their  goal — such  a  sacrifice  is  utterly  beyond 
the  strength  of  many  of  them." 


IRELAND  163 

The  Irish  question  is  vastly  more  complex,  more 
profound,  than  these  noble  young  visionaries  see  it. 
To  pay  life's  arrears  in  one  moment  of  sacrifice  is  not 
to  remedy  the  poverty  of  peasants,  the  distrust  of 
Protestant  Ulster,  and  the  slums  of  Dublin  and  Cork. 
Clear  thinking  is  necessary,  large  concessions,  a  for- 
giving state  of  mind,  sound  economic  and  sociological 
measures,  a  series  of  prosaic  next  steps.  A  sane 
trade-union  policy,  co-operation,  education,  religious 
tolerance,  clean  local  politics  are  demanded  to  free 
Ireland  from  poverty  and  dissension.  Some  of  this 
ground-work  is  already  being  done.  Much  is  still 
required.  In  the  Anglo-Irish  question  there  are  many 
points  of  resemblance  to  that  of  capital  and  labour. 
Just  as  the  lot  of  labour  has  grown  steadily  better 
through  recent  generations,  so  the  condition  of  Ireland 
is  improving  year  by  year.  There  have  been  exten- 
sions of  justice.  Ameliorative  agencies  are  at  work. 
Only  four  years  ago  Erskine  Childers,^  the  protagonist 
of  Home  Rule,  wrote  : 

A  great  change  has  taken  place  in  the  condition- 
of  Ireland  during  the  last  nineteen  years.  We  all 
know  its  main  characteristics,_and  I  need  only 
summarize  the  result.  By  contrast  with  her  situa- 
tion in  1893,  Ireland  may  be  said  to  be  completely 
tranquil  and  comparatively  prosperous.  More 
than  half  the  tenants  of  Irish  land  are  on  the  road 
to  freehold  ownership  ;  the  rest  have  their  rights 
guarded  and  their  rents  limited  by  law.  The  great 
cardinal  land  reforms,  late,  terribly  late,  though 
they  came,  laid  the  foundations  of  a  new  social 

1  See  also  "  The  Framework  of  Home  Rule,'*  by  Erskine  Childers. 


l64  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

order,  and  rendered  possible  a  change  for  the  better 
in  every  phase  of  national  life.  Though  all  work 
not  done  by  Ireland  herself  for  her  own  good  must 
necessarily  be  defective,  we  may  frankly  admit 
that  both  English  parties  in  recent  years  have 
endeavoured  to  do  their  best  in  limited  directions 
to  repair  the  frightful  ravages  wrought  by  past 
misgovernment.  The  extension  of  local  govern- 
ment to  Ireland,  focussing  the  minds  of  Irishmen 
upon  many  of  their  own  local  problems,  has  power- 
fully contributed  to  the  improvement.  Decent, 
healthy  dwellings  are  replacing  the  old  mud  cabins 
of  the  labouring  classes.  There  is  a  National  Univer- 
sity ;  there  is  a  central  department,  with  popular 
influence  behind  it,  for  safeguarding  and  stimulating 
agriculture  and  industry.  Nearly  three  milHons 
of  money  are  distributed  in  Old-Age  Pensions. 
Economic  serfdom  has  disappeared.  A  load  of 
exorbitant  rent,  and  a  still  heavier  load  of  haunting 
insecurity,  have  been  removed.  The  spirit  is 
freer,  the  physical  welfare  greater.  Production 
is  slowly  increasing,  and  commerce  is  slowly 
expanding. 

The  national  university  in  the  great  Irish  cities  has 
been  a  belated,  but  now  partly  efficient,  piece  of  justice. 
These  colleges  carry  on  scientific  research  to  further 
industrial  development.  There  is  training  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  the  locality.  Trinity  produces  young 
doctors,  lawyers,  and  literary  men  known  through- 
out the  English-speaking  world.  The  Irish  land  com- 
mission, the  estates  commission,  the  congested-districts 
board,  labour  in  their  own  way  to  restore  the  land 
to  the  peasant  proprietors  and  to  give  them  decent 
lodging.    The  department  of  agriculture  and  technical 


IRELAND  165 

instruction  for  Ireland  informs  the  peasants  in  modern 
methods  of  agriculture  and  the  development  of  horti- 
culture. The  Irish  Agricultural  Organization  Society 
is  the  long  official  name  for  the  co-operative  society 
of  which  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  is  president,  which  has 
1023  societies,  350  creameries,  95  auxiliary  creameries, 
233  credit  societies,  222  agricultural  societies,  and  a 
membership  of  106,301  persons.  The  annual  turn- 
over amounts  to  nearly  ;£7,ooo,ooo.  The  local  govern- 
ment board  has  given  Ireland  an  increasing  oppor- 
tunity in  self-government.  Industrially  Ireland  builds- 
ships,  makes  linen,  whisky,  stout,  ginger-ale,  agri- 
cultural implements,  biscuits.  Agriculturally  she  raises 
food-stuffs  and  exports  cattle,  sheep,  horses,  butter, 
eggs.  Agriculture  and  its  direct  connections  engage 
over  seventy  per  cent,  of  her  business,  industry  less 
than  thirty  per  cent. 

The  institutions  of  education  and  executive  manage- 
ment, the  governmental  and  voluntary  departments, 
the  returning  prosperity  of  her  forming  community, 
the  growing  wealth  of  industrial  Ulster — all  these  are 
making  Ireland  a  better  place  to  live  in  than  it  was 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Ireland  is  not  going 
down.  She  is  coming  up,  and  all  that  improvement 
is  without  reference  to  the  Home  Rule  question. 

In  the  literary  world  Ireland  is  very  much  on  the 
map.  I  saw  three  groups  of  Irish  players,  at  the 
Abbey  Theatre,  the  Empire,  and  the  Irish  Theatre 
in  Hardwicke  Street.  These  groups  gave  six  plays, 
containing  accurate  observation  of  life  and  a  dramatic 
idea,  rendered  with  a  charm  of  interpretation.    There 


166  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  to-day  no  dramatic  grov/th  so  native  and  racy  in 
America  or  England.  The  Irish  writers  and  poets 
are  among  the  best  in  our  language.  Lady  Gregory, 
Yeats,  James  Stephens,  A.  E.,  Katharine  Tynan,  Dora 
Sigerson  and  Dunsany,  are  worthy  representatives  of 
a  creative  tradition.  These  poets  and  prose  writers 
are  not  like  those  of  England  and  New  England,  men 
speaking  a  literary  dialect  unrelated  to  the  aspiration 
of  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  Irishmen  of  talent  are 
giving  a  voice  to  their  race.  Irish  art  is  a  national 
expression. 

The  Irish  are  a  religious  race,  wherein  they  differ 
from  the  Americans,  French,  and  English  of  this 
generation.  Unionists  and  Nationalists  are  believers. 
This  fundamental  conception  of  life  colours  their 
education,  literature,  and  political  ideas.  For  this 
reason,  as  well  as  for  many  other  reasons,  it  is  impossible 
for  an  outsider  to  legislate  for  them.  No  policy  that 
omits  the  sacramental  view  of  life  can  survive  in  this 
land  of  simple  and  profound  faith. 

Such  are  a  few  aspects  of  a  community  as  varied  and 
delightful  as  I  have  ever  visited.  Now  I  return  to  my 
analogy  of  capital  and  labour.  With  each  increase  of 
well-being,  the  labouring  classes  have  only  struggled 
the  harder  for  further  gains.  They  aim  at  a  share 
in  control,  not  at  well-fed  contentment  in  a  benevolent 
industrial  autocracy.  It  is  so  with  the  Irish.  They 
have  made  astonishing  gains  since  1893. 

"  Now,  we  know  very  well  what  the  Unionists  are 
saying  about  this  improvement,''  writes  an  Irish 
scholar.    "  They   axe   saying   that   it   has   not   only 


IRELAND  167 

removed  the  necessity  for  Home  Rule,  but  weakened 
the  desire  for  Home  Rule." 

But  the  very  improvement — improvement  in  educa- 
tion, in  agriculture,  in  self-government — ^has  only 
heightened  the  self-consciousness  and  intensified  the 
nationality  of  Ireland.  It  would  be  nonsense  to  say 
to-day  that  Ireland  is  "  completely  tranquil."  Grant- 
ing that  the  basic  problems  are  those  of  self-develop- 
ment, a  wise  economic  policy,  a  general  compulsory 
education,  a  co-operation  in  every  department  of 
community  life,  instead  of  the  present  dissension,  which 
cuts  efficiency  into  small  wrangling  bits,  yet  the  fact 
remains  that  the  central  cause  of  unrest,  the  creator  of 
difference,  is  the  feeling  of  political  servitude. 

Ireland  is  in  part  governed  under  local  home  rule, 
and  in  part  is  governed  at  Westminster,  London,  and 
in  the  EngHsh  "  garrison  "  of  Dublin  Castle. 

"  Its  centre  is  outside  its  circumference,"  as  a 
brilUant  Irish  novelist  said  to  me. 

**  As  the  result  of  that,"  he  went  on  to  say,  *'  the 
best  of  the  Irish  have  gone  to  England  for  a  career, 
and  Ireland  lost  them  for  ever.  The  EngHsh  have  been 
able  to  buy  Irish  brains  over  the  counter,  as  you  buy  a 
ham." 

The  foreign  Government  robs  Ireland  of  her  native 
leaders.  It  does  more  than  that.  It  creates  a  chronic 
state  of  exasperated  nerves.  It  introduces  emotion 
into  what  are  matter-of-fact  questions  requiring  cold 
thinking.  It  results  in  a  political  quarrel  between  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  and  the  Co-operative 
Society.    Flax  raising  and  the  increase  of  tillage  are 


i68     .      INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

hotly  contested  in  the  atmosphere   of   an  historic 
quarrel. 

The  study  of  the  Gaelic  language  is  by  some  regarded 
as  the  hope  of  Ireland  and  by  others  as  the  mother  of 
rebellion.  A  good-natured  reference  to  Protestants 
was  interpreted  by  the  man  sitting  behind  me  in  the 
Empire  Theatre  as  an  attack  on  Presbyterianism,  and 
he  shouted  out  his  resentment.  The  trail  of  political 
division  is  over  every  cell  of  the  national  conscious- 
ness. Not  one  of  Ireland's  pressing  problems  can  be 
solved  in  the  present  atmosphere.  The  Germans  have 
found  that  their  installation  of  education  and  economic 
organization  did  not  win  the  friendship  of  the  Belgians, 
who  wish  one  thing — ^to  be  free  of  their  benefactors. 
So,  in  the  play  of  *'  The  White-headed  Boy,"  which 
I  saw  at  the  Abbey  Theatre,  one  of  the  characters  sums 
up  the  mistaken  treatment  of  the  hero. 

"  WeVe  been  like  the  damned  English,"  he  says, 
"  We  gave  the  boy  money  and  education,  and  ran 
his  life  for  him.  We  gave  him  everything  but  the  one 
thing." 

That  one  thing  is  liberty. 

"  That  play  is  the  parable  of  Ireland,"  said  an 
Irish  editor  to  me. 

In  the  formative  years  of  my  life  I  was  educated  by 
an  Englishman,  an  Oxford  man.  For  nine  years  an 
Englishwoman  has  been  a  member  of  my  household. 
Much  of  my  spare  time  in  the  last  sixteen  years  has 
been  spent  in  England — eight  visits,  and  a  residence  of 
two  years  at  one  time.  I  don't  pretend  to  generahze,. 
but  I  do  claim  the  right  to  record  personal  impressions 


IRELAND  169 

that  are  based  on  a  fairly  wide  observation  and  expe- 
rience. I  find  the  largest  measure  of  personal  liberty 
in  England  of  any  country  which  I  have  visited.  The 
masses  in  England  are  among  the  kindliest  people 
known  to  me.  And  this  well-nigh  general  kindliness 
and  this  belief  in  the  rights  of  the  individual  man  have 
made  England  a  champion  of  freedom  and  justice, 
for  freedom  and  justice  are  the  social  expression  of 
individual  good-will  and  of  reverence  for  personality. 
But  England  in  Ireland  is  not  the  genial  democracy 
safeguarding  the  liberty  of  the  individual.  England 
in  Ireland  is  a  race  of  officials,  politicians,  and  traders, 
unlovely  creatures  at  best,  and  very  irritating  when 
turned  loose  on  a  race  of  different  blood  and  belief. 
Edward  Carpenter  says  of  his  people  : 

The  leaden  skies  of  England,  and  something 
(if  I  may  say  so)  ra;ther  gray  and  leaden  about  the 
people,  have  since  my  early  days  had  the  effect 
of  making  me  feel  not  quite  at  home  in  my  own 
country.  I  longed  for  more  sunshine,  and  for 
something  corresponding  to  sunshine  in  human 
nature — more  gaiety,  vivacity  of  heart,  and  open- 
ness of  ideas. 

In  dealing  with  an  unsuppressed,  graceful,  and 
charming  race  like  the  Irish,  the  Englishman  is  at  a 
hopeless  disadvantage.  The  mental  alertness  of  the 
Irish,  the  flow  of  language,  the  swift  responsiveness 
of  mood,  leave  him  shy  and  inarticulate,  and,  out- 
pointed at  every  thrust,  he  takes  refuge  in  his  heavi- 
ness. The  result  is  offence  given  and  received.  It- 
is  the  tragedy  of  the  English  that,  kindly  and  honour- 


170  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

able  as  they  are,  they  have  estabUshed  no  real  relation- 
ship with  the  most  exquisitely  imaginative  people 
in  the  world. 

Internationally  it  is  of  high  importance  that  the 
Irish  question  shall  be  swiftly  settled  right.  There 
will  never  be  a  thorough  understanding  and  goodwill 
between  England  and  the  United  States  until  the  Irish 
mess  is  cleared  up.  The  German  King  of  England  and 
his  Hessians  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  the 
divided  English  sympathy  in  the  Civil  War,  are  only 
rhetorical  resorts  of  certain  of  our  American  Congress- 
men.   But  Ireland  is  a  living  irritant. 

Just  now  England  is  in  the  most  bitter  warfare  of 
her  thousand  years.  It  is  humanly  impossible  for 
her  to  turn  aside  from  the  work  in  front  of  her  to  solve 
the  wrong  inside  her  commonwealth.  To  shout  her 
down  is  to  strengthen  her  enemy  at  the  moment  of 
combat,  and  her  enemy  is  the  enemy  of  the  human 
race.  To  weaken  her  is  to  weaken  the  last  defence 
against  that  force  which  would  destroy  nationality 
throughout  Europe.  So  the  cause  of  Ireland,  like 
that  of  exploited  labour  and  suppressed  women,  must 
wait  the  greater  decision  to  the  east.  But  when  peace 
comes,  the  turn  of  Ireland  comes,  and  she  will  be 
heard  at  the  "  round  table  "  of  the  imperial  conference. 
The  same  cause  for  which  the  Enghsh  die  in 
Picardy  in  the  noblest  war  of  their  history  awaits  their 
chivalrous  response  across  the  Irish  Sea.  A  little 
nation  desires  to  be  free.  In  the  final  judgment  of 
men  England's  greatness  in  this  day  will  be  measured 
by  the  treatment  she  metes  to  Ireland. 


IRELAND  171 

Young  England  Speaks 

At  my  request,  one  of  the  younger  English  statesmen 
has  written  this  reply  to  the  foregoing  chapter  : 

If  the  Irish  question  has  to  be  solved  at  all,  it 
has  to  be  solved  by  young  England  and  young  Ireland 
together.  The  very  fact,  admitted  by  all  sane  opinion 
in  Ireland — that  Ireland  must  remain  inside  the 
federation  of  the  British  commonwealth — means  that 
the  solution  is  a  common  and  mutual  one  which  can- 
not in  the  nature  of  things  be  decided  by  the  unaided 
efforts  of  Ireland  herself.  For  one  thing,  take  the 
question  of  finance.  Perhaps  the  most  urgent  prob- 
lems in  Ireland  are  the  social  reforms  which  can  be 
carried  through  only  by  the  expenditure  of  money. 
Not  only  would  an  absolutely  independent  Ireland 
be  unable  to  devote  money  to  new  reforms,  but  she 
would  even  have  to  reduce  many  of  the  social  expendi- 
tures now  existing  under  the  heads  of  old-age  pensions, 
state  insurance,  congested-districts  board,  etc.  Young 
Ireland  says  that  she  will  reduce  her  expenditure  and 
limit  it  by  her  own  revenue  rather  than  accept  a  subsidy 
from  England  implying  English  control.  Young  Eng- 
land, on  the  other  hand,  is  obliged  to  reply,  in  words 
familiar  to  American  political  thought,  that  a  subsidy 
from  England  to  Ireland  without  some  control  would 
be  taxation  of  the  EngHsh  people  without  representa- 
tion, and  is,  therefore,  constitutionally  unthinkable 
as  anything  like  a  permanent  arrangement.  But  the 
actual  constitutional  counterpart  of  payments  between 
states  united  in  the  same  federated  commonwealth 


172  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  a  matter  of  adjustment  which  need  not  imply  any 
loss  of  independence  or  self-government.  The  only 
thing  necessary  to  the  creation  of  such  constitutional 
machinery  is  mutual  consultation. 

And  somewhere  here  lies  the  real  tragedy  of  the 
Irish  Rebellion.  Young  England — the  England  that 
was  finding  itself  in  "The' Round  Table,"  in  the 
Workers'  Educational  Association,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  even  in  the  Unionist  Social  Reform  Committee 
— ^had,  before  the  war,  become  inexpressibly  weary  of 
the  atmosphere  in  which  the  Anglo-Irish  question 
was  carried  on  at  Westminster.  They  knew  not  only 
the  failure  of  English  government  in  Ireland,  but  also 
the  souring  and  clogging  effect  of  the  Irish  party  at 
Westminster  upon  the  Government  of  England. 
They,  in  common  with  many  well-known  Irishmen 
in  Ireland  who  had  cut  themselves  off  from  political 
factions  during  the  last  fifteen  years — ^the  Plunketts, 
the  Mounteagles,  the  Russells — ^recognized  men  like 
Connolly  and  the  whole  young  Irish  party,  whose 
aspirations  you  have  described,  as  far  more  competent 
to  deal  with  the  problem  in  a  fundamental  way  than 
the  Nationalists  at  Westminster.  Such  members 
of  young  England  found  their  ideas  best  summed  up 
by  that  poem  in  which  A.  E.  confesses  **  the  golden 
heresy  of  truth."  They  really  thought  that  out  of 
young  Ireland  was  growing  a  party  with  whom  they 
could  work  in  the  immediate  introduction  of  Home 
Rule  within  a  federated  British  Empire  which  more 
than  anything  else  satisfied  their  longing  for  a  com- 
prehensive polic3^ 


IRELAND  173 

Such  men,  cast  down  into  the  depths  by  the  bicker- 
ings of  July,  1914,  rejoiced  to  see  their  hopes  confirmed 
by  the  sweeping  change  in  England  which  followed 
the  outbreak  of  war — ^by  the  obliteration  in  all  but  a 
few  journaHstic  and  parliamentary  circles  of  the  old 
pre-war  contests. 

The  hopes  of  this  young  England,  which  is  now  to  a 
man  in  the  trenches  or  in  Government  departments 
absorbed  in  the  overwhelming  duties  of  war,  have  been 
cheated  much  as  the  hopes  of  those  young  American 
enthusiasts  who  in  1911,  during  the  Lawrence  strike, 
hailed  the  syndicalists  and  Giovanitti  as  truer  repre- 
sentatives of  the  aspirations  of  labour  than  the  older 
trade-unions,  have  been  soured  and  destroyed  by  the 
petty  bitterness  and  futility  of  "  The  Masses/'^ 
But  the  disappointment  was  far  more  deadly.  The 
Irish  Rebellion  was  to  them  the  stab  in  the  back  from 
just  the  people  with  whom  they  felt  best  able  to 
co-operate  after  the  war,  and  it  was  a  stab  all  the  more 
fatal  because  young  England  did  not  lose  its  respect 
for  leaders  like  Connolly.  They  still  say  they  would 
rather  have  seen  Ireland  under  the  government  of  a 
man  of  this  stamp  than  ten  men  from  the  Ulster  army 
or  from  the  orthodox  Nationalist  party. 

The  average  man  in  the  street  in  England  to-day, 
so  far  from  wishing  to  govern  Ireland,  has.-bnly  one 
idea,  to  clear  out  of  Ireland  as  quickly  as  possible. 
Ireland  to  him  is  not  a  field  for  .the  administrative 
qualities  of  the  English  any  more  than  Quebec  or  the 
Transvaal.    It  is  a  field  for  their  political  qualities. 

*  An  American  periodical  of  socialist  and  pacifist  thought. 


174  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

It  is  a  part  of  the  self-governing  empire,  not  one  of  the 
dependencies  ;  it  is  a  nation  of  equals,  co-authors  with 
the  English  of  the  British  Empire,  co-settlers  and 
comrades-in-arms,  not  a  "  backward  race."  Young 
England  insists  that,  while  a  despairing  severance  of 
relations  between  England  and  Ireland  in  the  spirit  of 
Joan  of  Arc  "as  to  the  peace  with  the  English,  the 
only  one  possible  is  that  they  should  go  back  to  their 
own  country  in  England,"  though  it  would  be  better 
than  the  present  situation,  would  be  as  futile  and 
unnecessary  as  Lee  in  1861  believed  the  severance  of 
Virginia  from  Massachusetts.  There  is  no  need  for 
Ireland  to  starve  herself  of  money  in  the  belief  that  a 
federal  government  at  Westminster  must  mean  loss 
of  self-government  in  Ireland.  And  just  because 
Ireland  is  not  a  backward  race  or  merely  a  wronged 
race,  young  England  cannot  be  content  with  the 
application  to  her  of  the  policy  of  Indian  reformers 
in  the  United  States,  "  Give  the  Indian  his  portion 
and  clear  out." 

The  only  thing  that  could  prevent  the  inevitable 
righteous  and  peaceful  settlement  of  the  Irish  question 
would  be  a  feeling  in  young  England  that  the  Irish 
revolutionists  have  gained  applause  not  for  all  their 
aspirations  and  policies  with  which  young  England 
ardently  sympathized,  but  for  the  last  mad  mistake 
which  led  young  Ireland  to  desert  the  cause  of  liberty 
at  the  very  moment  of  Verdun.  It  is  this  applause 
coming  from  America — ^the  bitterness  of  Roman  Catho- 
lic pulpits  in  Boston  and  Chicago,  the  railings  of  mass 
meetings  in  New  York,  the  irresponsible  perorations 


IRELAND  175 

of  Irish- American  politicians — ^that  chiefly  threatens 
the  future  of  Ireland.  Young  England  saw  a  vision 
before  the  war,  and  that  vision  has  been  confirmed  by 
the  sufferings  of  the  war.  Young  England  will  come 
back  from  the  trenches  few  (how  few !)  in  numbers, 
but  with  new  determination  for  the  future.  They 
cannot  and  will  not  accept  from  America  that  last 
and  worst  doctrine  of  reaction,  the  doctrine  of  Lot's 
wife,  who,  looking  back  on  a  past  already  redeemed, 
remained  a  pillar  of  bitterness  for  all  future  generations. 

The  Siamese  Twin 

To  talk  about  Ireland  and  omit  Ulster  is  to  construct 
an  algebra  by  omitting  x,  A  portion  of  Ulster  is 
resolutely  determined  to  stay  outside  Irish  self- 
government.  This  section  is  friendly  to  England,  is 
in  favour  of  British  rule  in  Ireland,  is  Protestant,  and 
is  industrially  a  powerful  community.  To  go  into  the 
history  of  this  division  would  be  barren,  so  I  pick  up 
the  situation  as  it  is  to-day.  A  large  number  of  young 
Irish  Nationalists  wish  the  coming  Ireland  to  be 
a  seamless  garment,  one  and  indivisible.  A  famous 
song  in  Ireland  is  that  of  Thomas  Davis,  "  A  Nation 
Once  Again  '* : 

And  then  I  prayed  I  yet  might  see 

Our  fetters  rent  in  twain. 
And  Ireland,  long  a  province,  be 

A  nation  once  again. 

The  phrase  "  a  nation  once  again  "  is  as  famous 
in  Ireland  as  "  government  of  the  people  "  among 
Americans.    When    the    plan    of   excluding   certain 


176  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

counties  of  Ulster  fell  through,  the  sentiment  of  young 
NationaUst  Ireland  turned  against  any  compromise 
which  would  omit  any  part  of  Ireland  from  Home  Rule, 
and  the  song  was  parodied  *'  Three  Quarters  of  a 
Nation  Once  Again.'* 

A  farcical  skit  was  recently  produced  at  the  Abbey 
Theatre  in  Dublin,  called  "  Partition."  It  shows  a 
house  lying  exactly  on  the  border-line  of  Ulster  and 
Leinster,  so  that  one  half  the  house  is  in  each  province. 
C'  There  is  a  village,"  says  the  programme,  "  half  of 
which  would  be  under  the  proposed  Home  Rule  juris- 
diction and  the  other  half  under  the  control  of  the 
Executive  for  the  excluded  counties.")  Andy  Kelly, 
who  lives  in  the  house,  shifts  his  furniture  to  the  Ulster 
side  when  the  Home  Rule  bailiffs  come  to  sell  him  up. 
When  both  sets  of  bailiffs  come,  he  draws  a  chalk  mark, 
and  piles  his  household  stuff  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 
A  fine  scrap  breaks  out  between  the  representatives 
of  the  two  governments.  Andy's  summary  of  the 
situation  is  this  : 

"  I'm  a  Siamese  twin.  I'm  a  sort  of  a  two  in  wan, 
an'  now  look  here,  it's  the  queerest  thing — ^what  kind 
of  a  hole  would  ye  be  in  if  wan  of  the  twins  was  to  steal 
somethin'  an'  maybe  th'  other  lad  as  innocent  as  a 
baby,  shure  ye  couldn't  cut  them  in  two  an'  ye  couldn't 
put  both  o'  them  in  jail  wid  wan  o'  them  maybe  provin' 
an  alibi." 

The  play  ends  with  "  General  fighting,  furniture  all 
over  the  place,  women  screaming.  The  village  cornet- 
player  is  heard  in  the  distance  playing  *  A  Nation 
Once   Again.' "    As   the   curtain   falls,    Andy   says, 


IRELAND  177 

'*  Begobs  the  Siamese  twins  will  be  kilt  and  buried 
in  the  wan  coffin." 

Professor  John  MacNeill,  who  was  head  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers  before  the  Easter  Rising,  wrote  concerning 
the  Ulster  cul  de  sac  : 

"  I  urge  the  Irish  people  to  permit  no  surrender  on 
the  partition  question.'* 

And  these  are  his  reasons  : 

Politically  speaking,  Ulster  is  made  up  of  a 
compact  Nationalist  West  in  Donegal,  a  less  intact 
Unionist  East  in  Antrim  and  Down,  with  two  great 
NationaHst  limbs  and  two  great  Unionist  limbs 
alternately  lying  almost  from  side  to  side  of  the 
province.  If  you  take  two  of  those  horseshoe- 
shaped  breakfast  rolls  and  dovetail  one  into  the 
other,  you  will  have  a  rough  approximate  plan 
of  political  Ulster. 

The  partition  of  Ulster  would  give  rise  to  a  state 
of  things  for  which  one  would  have  to  go  to  the 
Balkan  peninsula  under  the  Disraelian  *'  settle- 
ment "  for  a  parallel. 

If  you  cut  the  more  compact  areas  of  the  Planta- 
tion off  from  Ireland  de  jure  and  de  facto,  you  will 
make  a  real  enemy  of  their  inhabitants,  and  arm 
them  with  greater  powers  of  mischief  than  they  have 
ever  possessed  since  the  days  when  the  old  race  and 
the  new  were  at  open  war.  You  would  have  a  recog- 
nized Lesser  Britain,  and  a  lesser  Britain  irredenta 
^  stretching  right  through  the  heart  of  Ulster,  with 
kinsmen  and  sympathizers  all  over  Ireland.  What 
opportunities  for  a  lively  time  I  And  the  Ireland 
irredenta  made  fast  in  the  midst  of  the  British 
territory  would  not  be  behindhand. 

If  Catholic  and  Protestant  roughly  correspond 
in   Ireland    to   NationaHst    and   anti-Nationalist, 

M 


178  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

there  must  be  some  other  cause  than  religious 
sentiment  operating  through  religious  sentiment 
to  create  national  disunion. 

The  Ulster  Unionist  has  been  taught  to  regard 
himself  as  a  full-blooded  Teuton  and  his  Catholic 
neighbour  as  a  full-blooded  Celt.  It  is  not  a  fact 
of  race,  but  an  illusion  of  race,  that  makes  Ulster 
Unionists  pro-British  and  anti-Irish. 

There  are  not  two  Irish  nations.  A  foreign 
"  faction  '*  is  a  familiar  feature  in  many  a  national 
history.  We  have  in  the  Irish  nation  of  to-day  a 
foreign  faction.  I  have  found  myself  in  Belfast  right 
in  the  zone  of  fire  between  two  stone  throwing  mobs, 
one  Catholic,  and  the  other  Protestant.  Nobody 
will  persuade  me  that  either  Irish  nationality  or 
British  supremacy  was  the  spirit  that  projected 
those  showers  of  missiles.  It  was  simple  primitive 
savagery  with  religion  for  an  excuse  and  politics 
for  a  super-excuse. 

Suppose  we  Nationalists  declare  every  man  who 
uses  anti-Protestant  party  cries,  or  in  any  way 
interferes  with  Protestant  demonstrations,  to  be 
the  worst  enemy  of  his  country's  cause.  I  would 
begin  the  task  of  persuasion  with  the  economic 
unity  of  Ireland  as  the  main  argument.  Once 
Ireland  ceases  to  be  a  goose  to  be  plucked,  it  will 
be  impossible  to  persuade  the  EngHsh  people  to 
charge  themselves  any  longer  with  responsibilities 
for  her  internal  affairs.  With  the  excess  of  Irish 
taxation  once  down,  the  burden  of  Irish  internal 
administration  would  have  been  unshouldered 
by  the  British  Parliament.  Home  Rule  without 
financial  reform  is  a  mere  fantasy.  So  long  as 
Ireland  consents  to  pay  Great  Britain  three  millions 
a  year  clear  profit  for  being  misgoverned,  so  long 
will  the  Unionist  Party  succeed  in  persuading  the 
British  elector  to  make  no  rash  changes.     It  is 


IRELAND  179 

safe  to  say  that  one-tenth  is  drawn  out  of  the  city 
of  Belfast  alone,  and  one-fifth  is  filched  from  the 
Unionists  of  Ulster.  The  question  for  Nationalists 
is  the  money  question.  The  country  will  soon  want 
to  know  what  its  political  leaders  are  going  to  do 
about  this  appalling  robbery.  No  self-government 
worth  having  will  ever  be  gained  except  by  the 
previous  victory  of  a  practically  united  Ireland  over 
British  spoliation.^ 

I  give  his  analysis  in  detail,  because  it  is  the  clear 
expression  of  a  widespread,  subconscious  desire  of 
Irish  Nationalists  for  a  united  Ireland.  James 
Stephens,^  the  charming  Irish  writer  whose  *'  Crock  of 
Gold  "  and  "  Here  Are  Ladies  ''  are  known  to  American 
readers,  says  in  interpreting  the  desire  of  Ireland  to 
assume  control  of  her  national  life  : 

This  ideal  of  freedom  has  captured  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  race.  It  rides  Ireland  like  a  nightmare, 
thwarting  or  preventing  all  civilizing  or  cultural 
work  in  this  country. 

And  the  way  to  obtain  freedom  he  gives  : 

The  safeguards  ^hich  Ulster  will  demand,  should 
events  absolutely  force  her  to  it,  may  sound  political 
or  religious,  they  will  be  found  essentially  economic, 
and  the  root  of  them  all  will  be  a  water-tight 
friendship  with  England.  We  must  swallow 
England  if  Ulster  is  to  swallow  us. 

Opposed,  then,  to  the  idea  of  an  Ulster  bitterly 
hostile  to  any  form  of  union  with  the  rest  of  Ireland, 

1  Compare  the  Final  Report  of  the  Financial  Relations  Commis- 
sion of  1896  on  the  taxation  of  Ireland. 

'  See  "  The  Insurrection  in  Dublin,"  by  James  Stephens. 


i8o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

we  have  the  plan  of  a  colonial  self-government  for 
Ireland  inside  the  British  commonwealth,  with  a 
guaranteed  friendliness  of  relationship  with  England 
and  with  Ulster. 

How  to  obtain  this  in  practice  ?  An  answer  was 
given  to  me  by  A.  E.  A.  E.  is  the  greatest  living 
"  pure  "  Irishman.  By  his  "  purity  "  I  mean  that 
he  has  lived  his  life  in  Ireland  instead  of  crossing  the 
channel  for  his  career  like  Shaw."  Many  Irishmen  of 
talent  have  transplanted  themselves  where  fame  and 
power  and  the  delightful  contacts  of  a  prosperous 
civilization  can  be  had  on  easy  terms.  But  Paris 
and  New  York  and  London  have  piped  in  vain  to 
George  Russell.  Poet,  dramatist,  journalist,  editor, 
painter,  essayist,  prophet  of  co-operation,' organizer — 
he  has  carried  on  his  various  and  vital  activities  in 
his  homeland.  "A.  E.  is  the  one  great  thing  left  to  us 
besides  the  Nelson  *  Pillar,*'  said  James  Stephens  to 
me.  Russell  writes  one  of  the  richest  and  most  perfect 
prose  styles  of  the  present  day,  and  he  has  devoted  that 
technique  to  the  production  of  "  The  Homestead," 
an  organ  of  the  Irish  co-operative  movement.  Very 
literally  he  stands  on  Irish  soil,  and  speaks  to  the 
peasant  population.  He  is  fifty-one  years  old,  with 
the  laughter  and  generous  heart  of  a  boy,  and  he  will 
die  with  all  his  fine  hopes  in  him.  There  is  something 
chivalrous  about  him,  something  yoimg  and  fierce 
and  burning.  His  face  is  the  face  of  the  portrait  of 
William  Morris  :  the  abundant  beard,  the  living  eyes, 
the  look  of  the  mystic  who  puts  his  dreams  into  action. 
He  is  the  same  sort  of  many-handed,  many-minded 


IRELAND  i8i 

man.  This  is  the  way  out  of  the  Enghsh-Ulster- 
NationaHst  muddle  as  he  sees  it  and  as  he  gave  it  to 
me.  To  get  the  full  drive  of  it,  one  must  see  the  bulky, 
shaggy  man,  simpler  and  more  human  than  most  men, 
with  fun  and  vitality  in  his  talk.     He  said  to  me  :  ^ 

The  Irish  question  is  not  only  national,  but 
involves  questions  of  international  economics. 
Irish  linen  is  sent  over  the  world.  Belfast  ships 
are  sold  to  British  and  American  buyers.  Belfast 
ginger-ale  is  sold  in  CaHfornia.  Industrial  Ulster 
fears  the  laws  that  would  be  passed  in  a  legislature 
where  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  members  would 
be  representatives  of  small  farmers,  men  whose 
views  are  parochial  and  who  have  no  knowledge 
of  the  intricate  problems  manufacturers  engaged  in 
international  trade  have  to  solve.  Irish  Nationalists 
ought  to  meet  those  views,  and  prove  to  Ulster 
that  her  trade  interests  would  not  be  prejudiced 
in  an  Irish  parliament,  and  give  real  and  not 
verbal  guarantees  on  this  point.  Protestant  Ulster 
fears  religious  discrimination  in  a  parHament  which 
might  be  three-quarters  Roman  Catholic.  The 
most  powerful  political  organization  in  Ireland, 
the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians,  is  a  sectarian  and 
semi-secret  society  of  which  no  Protestant  can  be  a 
member.  Ulster  has  some  reason  to  be  troubled. 
When  we  consider  Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  there 
are  five  things  which  must  be  considered : 

I.  The  point  of  view  of  Great  Britain.  Great 
Britain  will  always  rightly  demand  that  Ireland 
be  friendly  to  the  imperial  alliance.  It  is  clearly 
impossible  that  England  should  allow  an  unfriendly 
power  to  have  freedom  for  independent  action  in 
Ireland. 
1  See  also  A.  E.'s  pamphlet,  "  Thoughts  for  a  Convention." 


i82  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

2.  The  point  of  view  of  the  Irish  NationaUsts. 
They  desire  the  poHtical  unity  of  Ireland,  and  will 
not  have  partition.  They  desire  full  Irish  control 
over  the  trade  policy  and  over  taxation.  Until 
they  win  that  full  control,  they  will  have  continuous 
agitation  and  there  will  be  unfriendly  feehngs 
between  the  two  countries. 

The  point  of  view  of  Ulster  in  the  following 
matters : 

3.  Ulster  requires  assurances  that  the  self- 
governing  Ireland  she  enters  into  will  be  friendly 
to  Great  Britain.  Ulster  carries  on  an  immense 
trade  with  England.  She  builds  ships  for  England. 
She  exports  linen  and  other  goods.  She  has  orders 
from  great  shipping  firms  and  from  the  Admiralty. 
These  orders  would  not  go  to  a  self-governing 
Ireland  with  nagging,  unfriendly  politicians  in 
control,  and  Ulster's  trade  would  decline.  She 
could  be  crippled  economically  by  race  hatreds 
expressed  in  an  Irish  parHament. 

4  and  5.  Ulster  demands  guarantees  both  econ- 
omic and  religious  as  to  her  own  position  in  a 
self-governing  Ireland.  The  Nationalists  should 
meet  Ulster  on  all  these  points.  It  should  be 
demonstrated  to  her  that  under  Home  Rule  Ireland 
will  be  friendly  to  Great  Britain,  and  just  to  the 
religious  and  industrial  Hfe  of  Ulster.  Nationalists, 
in  my  opinion,  should  offer  Ulster  political  power 
equal  to  her  economic  power.  This  might  be 
arranged  partly  by  proportional  representation 
by  dividing  Ireland  into  twelve  great  constituencies, 
so  that  the  Protestants  could  return  members  from 
districts  where  they  are  now  without  a  representa- 
tive. I  suggest  also  that  the  Senate,  or  upper 
house,  should  have  a  veto  power  for  a  certain 
number  of  years  until  the  traditions  of  government 
were  fixed,  say  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  that  a 


IRELAND  183 

majority  of  members  in  the  senate  for  that  time 
should  be  nominated  by  Ulster.  We  have  a  model 
in  the  Canadian  senate,  which  is  always  packed 
with  a  majority  adverse  to  the  party  in  power. 
This  is  accomplished  by  permitting  the  party  in 
power  to  nominate  vacancies  in  the  senate.  The 
party  coming  in  finds  a  majority  of  the  opposing 
party  in  the  senate,  and  the  old  party  so  retains  a 
measure  of  control.  The  Irish  senate  might  be 
formed  on  the  assumption  that  Irish  Unionists 
had  gone  out  of  power  and  had  left  the  senate 
packed  with  a  two-thirds  majority  of  their  party. 
Such  a  device  could  not  be  continued  indefinitely 
because  it  is  not  democratic.  But  use  that  method 
for  ten  or  twelve  or  even  fifteen  years  until  the 
political  tradition  of  self-government  had  become 
fixed  and  Ulster  is  reassured.  For  the  Irish 
question,  we  need  a  psychological  solution,  because 
in  the  years  of  dissension  the  people  have  tied  their 
souls  into  knots.  I  am  sure  the  Ulster  men  would 
not  use  the  power  of  veto  against  national  interests 
for  the  period  they  were  given  it. 

Sir  Edward  Carson  has  said  that  what  Ulster 
feared  was  not  bad  law-making.  *'  What  we  do 
fear  is  oppressive  administration."  They  fear 
that  public  oflices  will  be  packed  with  friends  of  the 
party  in  power,  that  the  poHcy  of  *'  to  the  victors 
belong  the  spoils  "  will  be  practised.  It  is  necessary 
to  reassure  Ulster  that  all  public  posts  would  be 
removed  from  jobbery,  and  that  merit  should 
have  its  open  chance  of  winning  promotion.  The 
way  to  do  this  is  to  make  all  Government  positions, 
all  posts  paid  for  out  of  public  moneys,  whether 
under  boards  of  guardians  or  county  councils,  part 
of  a  national  civil  service,  so  that  jobbery  on  account 
of  religion  or  politics  would  be  impossible.  Along 
these  lines  of  concession  and  balance  of  power 


i84  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

I  do  not  regard  the  special  Ulster  problem'^as 
insoluble. 

England  should  make  the  Irish  question  a  national 
question  with  herself,  not  a  party  question.  When- 
ever war  is  on,  a  coalition  government^ is  formed. 
So  it  should  be  in  dealing  with  Ireland.  Ireland 
should  be  treated  by  a  coalition  of  forces  in  England, 
considering  its  Irish  polity  as  a  national  question. 
If  Ireland  were  so  dealt  with,  the  opposition  of 
Ulster  to  settlement  would  lessen. 

The  present  method  of  splitting  Ireland  and 
misgoverning  it  has  led  to  a  reduction  of  its  popula- 
tion by  one-half  in  seventy  years.  That  is  bad  for 
Ireland  and  it  is  bad  for  England,  because  Ireland's 
exiles  in  other  countries  develop  bad  feeling  against 
England. 

There  are  only  two  ways  to  deal  with  Ireland, 
either  complete  union,  with  absolute  equality,  or 
else  complete  Irish  control  of  purely  Irish  afiairs. 
The  Home  Rule  bill  as  passed  would  not  settle  the 
question,  because  it  does  not  grant  to  Ireland  the 
fixing  of  taxation  and  the  trade  policy.  Whoever 
has  financial  and  economic  control  of  a  people 
fixes  the  character  of  the  civilization  of  that  people. 
There  is  no  British  reason  for  passing  a  Home  Rule 
bill  unless  to  settle  the  question.  Either  England 
must  control  Ireland  by  making  Irish  people  into 
English  people  in  sentiment  and  culture,  or  else 
she  must  grant  to  Ireland  the  status  of  a  dominion. 
England  must  retain  control  of  military,  naval, 
and  foreign  policy.  Let  Ireland  send  representa- 
tives not  to  the  British  Parliament,  but  to  the 
new  imperial  parliament,  which  is  certain  to  be 
formed  after  the  war.  Let  her  pay  her  contribution 
to  imperial  defence  prepared  by  assessors  appointed 
for  that  purpose  by  Great  Britain  and  the  dominions. 
What  we  should  aim  at  is  a  kind  of  Sinn  Fein 


IRELAND  185 

imperialism,  a  complete  control  of  internal  affairs 
and  a  participation  in  the  empire's  polity. 

The  feeling  for  complete  independence  had 
gradually  been  dying  down  to  a  romantic  feeling 
such  as  Scotchmen  feel  for  Prince  Charlie.  Then 
came  the  Ulster  and  Nationalist  Volunteers,  the 
recruiting  campaign,  the  rebellion,  the  executions, 
martial  law,  and  the  old  feeling  rose  up  again. 
It  has  become  an  intolerable  nuisance  not  to  have 
these  political  questions  settled.  I  think  myself 
too  much  importance  is  attached  to  the  location 
of  government,  and  I  have  myself  more  hope  in 
voluntary  economic  and  cultural  movements  than 
in  Acts  of  Parliam^t.  But  with  the  present 
political  unrest,  there  is  no  fixed  policy  in  the 
economic  life  of  Ireland.  Business  men  wish  a 
fixed  policy.  They  wish  to  have  more  certitude  in 
business  matters.  If  Ireland  was  contented,  it 
could  turn  to  the  problems  of  internal  government. 
We  have  over  two  thousand  national  teachers 
paid  less  than  thirty  pounds  a  year.  The  money 
has  been  put  on  the  constabulary,  which  is  over- 
manned. A  government  has  its  choice  of  leaving 
people  ignorant  and  spending  money  on  a  police 
force  to  keep  them  in  order  or  of  educating  them  and 
cutting  down  the  constabulary.  England  plumped 
for  the  pohce.  No  country  can  govern  another 
country  properly,  and  never  has  any  country  done 
so.  Countries  can  unite  with  another  in  a  federa- 
tion, but  no  country  can  rule  another.  You  see 
the  attempt  made  by  Germans  and  Russians  in 
Poland.  But  it  can  only  succeed  by  exterminating 
the  people  governed.  The  plantations  in  Ireland 
were  an  attempt  at  that. 

In  the  last  one  hundred  years  Ireland  lost  the 
power  to  speak  Gaelic.  Only  600,000  of  her 
people    speak    the    language    to-day.    And    yet 


i86  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Gaelic  literature  contains  the  dxeams  and  soul  of  the 
Irish  people  for  two  thousand  years.  It  is  one  of 
the  oldest  and  most  beautiful  literatures  in  Europe. 
That  lost  race  memory  is  a  loss  in  the  dignity  and 
spirituahty  of  their  life.  Imagine  the  Greeks  with- 
out Homer.  So  it  has  been  of  late  with  the  Irish 
in  the  loss  of  their  national  literature — legends  and 
poetry.  The  Irish  do  not  read  English  literature 
nor  have  they  accepted  English  culture.  That 
ancient  literature  of  theirs  ran  like  an  under- 
ground river  for  the  last  century  till  it  came  well- 
ing up  again  in  Standish  O 'Grady,  Stephens, 
Yeats,  and  Synge.  There  is  a  reshaping  of 
legendary  tales,  and  Anglo-Irish  literature  will  be 
powerfully  affected.  Gaelic  schools  have  sprung 
up.  O 'Grady  and  Synge  knew  Gaelic.  Padraic 
Colum  knows  it.  Stephens  can  read  it.  Mac- 
Donagh  and  Pearse  knew  it.  The  Celtic  spirit  of 
Ireland  is  emerging  in  the  poems  and  tales  of  modern 
Anglo-Celtic  literature  which  are  as  acceptable  to 
Ulster  as  to  the  rest  of  Ireland. 

A.  E.'s  solution,  then,  is  to  clear  the  political  ques- 
tion by  concession  and  guaranty,  to  forget  it,  and  to 
get  down  to  business — ^the  business  being  co-operation. 
Is  this  the  dream  of  Ireland's  most  glorious  dreamer, 
or  is  there  salvation  that  way  ? 

I  left  Mr.  Russell,  and  stepped  downstairs  in  Plunkett 
House  to  the  executive  offices  of  the  co-operative  move- 
ment. 

*'  While  the  gun-running  was  on,"  said  one  of  the 
co-operative  organizers  to  me,  "our  movement  was 
including  both  parties  in  the  fight.  Carson's  men  were 
arming  themselves,  and  the  Volunteers  were  arming 
against  them.    But  both  sets  were  working  together 


IRELAND  187 

in  our  society.  Each  had  their  guns  buried  with  which 
to  shoot  the  other,  but  they  were  busy  in  one  creamery^ 
working  in  harmony,  and  pooHng  their  economic  hfe. 
They  differ  pohtically,  but  their  interests  are  one." 

Poverty  :   The  Real  Irish  Question 

The  real  Irish  question  is  poverty. ^  Agricultural 
labour  receives  less  than  three  dollars  a  week.  The 
tenant  and  owner  and  labourer,  when  averaged  up, 
receive  only  I3.50  a  week.  Even  the  brief  and  dubious 
money  gains  of  war-time  are  not  an  offset  for  depre- 
ciated "  plant,"  and  the  stock  of  cattle  and  equipment 
of  agricultural  utensils  are  steadily  depreciating  in 
these  days  of  an  increased  export  trade.  The  slums  of 
Irish  cities  are  among  the  worst  in  Europe.  Dublin 
is  known  as  the  "  one-room  city,"  because  about 
sixty  thousand  of  her  people  are  congested.  Industrial 
labour  is  underpaid.  Preferential  through  rates  on  the 
railroads  have  given  Irish  markets  to  EngHsh  pro- 
ducers.^    Many  of  the  farms  are  too  small  for  economic 

^  The  reader  who  doubts  this  statement '  should  consult  the 
Report  of  the  Departmental  Committee  (L.G.B.  for  Ireland)  on 
the  Housing  Conditions  of  the  working  classes  in  Dublin ;  the 
Board  of  Trade  returns  on  the  earnings  and  hours  of  workpeople ; 
the  report,  pamphlets,  leaflets  and  articles  issued  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Irish  Agricultural  Organization  Society  by  George  Russell, 
Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  Lionel  Smith-Gordon,  and  Cruise  O'Brien; 
and  the  series  of  articles  during  the  latter  months  of  191 6  in  the 
"  Freeman's  Journal,"  written  by  "  Agricola."  Other  detailed 
facts  on  which  this  chapter  is  based  are  given  in  the  appendix  under 
the  heads  of  "  Irish  Railways  "  and  "  Irish  Agriculture."  See  also 
the  Final  Report  of  the  Financial  Relations  Commission  of  1896. 

» A  thorough  analysis  of  the  reactionary  railway  policy  in  Ire- 
land is  given  in  the  Fifth  Report  of  the  Vice-Regal  Commission  on 
Irish  Railways* 


i88  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

working,  and  what  there  is  of  them  is  not  good  enough 
soil.  Much  of  the  best  tillage  remains  in  the  hands 
of  the  landlords,  and  is  used  for  grazing  instead  of 
for  the  production  of  crops.  The  hope  of  Ireland 
lies  in  trade-unionism,  education,  and  co-operation. 
Ireland's  real  problem  is  to  increase  production  and 
distribute  prosperity. 

I  found  Ireland  stimulated  by  the  report  that  Henry 
Ford  was  planning  a  factory  in  Cork.  He  was  said 
to  have  taken  an  option  on  a  race-course,  to  plan  the 
diversion  of  the  river,  and  to  gi^arantee  a  minimum 
wage  of  over  a  pound  a  week  to  his  workers.  The 
story  ran  that  he  had  visited  his  mother's  birthplace 
in  Cork,  and  that  out  of  the  personal  tie  grew  his  plan 
to  revive  the  industrial  life  of  Ireland.  If  the  very 
rumour  has  given  cheer  to  an  underpaid  population, 
how  much  new  hope  will  flow  in  if  Irish-Americans, 
whose  hearts  bleed  for  Ireland,  will  invest  some  of  their 
money  in  Irish  agriculture  and  industry.  A  few 
million  dollars  invested  where  their  heart  is  will 
relieve  a  pressure  on  Ireland,  which  to-day  is  resulting 
in  bad  housing,  under-nourishment,  overwork,  and 
an  undue  proportion  of  pauperism.  The  real  Irish 
question  is  not  solved  by  political  wrangling  and 
chronically  jangled  nerves  inside  the  island,  or  by  hot 
temper  at  long  distance.  The  Irish- Americans  who 
have  planted  the  tradition  of  Ireland's  wrongs  in  the 
United  States  are  two  generations  out  of  date.  If  they 
would  get  into  touch  with  young  Ireland,  they  would 
find  they  were  chewing  over  stale  grievances  which  the 
march  of  thought  has  long  passed  by.    They  are  as 


IRELAND  189 

much  out  of  date  as  Marxian  socialists.  The  present 
campaign  is  based  on  concrete  issues,  requiring  a 
record  of  facts,  and  organization.  American  money 
is  not  needed  for  nationalistic  propaganda.  It  is 
needed  for  agricultural  and  industrial  development. 
Our  rich  Irish-Americans  can  do  an  immense  service 
to  Ireland.  They  can  aid  to  set  her  free,  but  not  by 
parliamentary  debates,  speech-making  campaigns,  and 
pitiful,  abortive  rebellions.  They  can  set  her  free  by 
standing  security  for  land  improvejment,!  better 
housing,  the  purchase  of  machinery  and  fertiHzer 
plants. 

Had  the  Irish  question  been  settled  (by. the  Irish 
question  I  must  insist  that  I  mean  not  the  comic- 
opera  politics  of  gun-running,  but  the  agricultural  and 
industrial  redemption  of  Ireland),  this  war  would 
have  been  an  easier  task  for  England.  The  submarine 
blockade  would  have  been  a  minor  factor.  Ireland's 
natural  market  is  England.  England  is  on  an  indus- 
trial basis,  and  needs  the  food-stuff  of  an  agricultural 
country  like  Ireland.  Every  mistake  England  has 
made  in  the  long  past  in  Ireland  has  cost  her  severely 
in  money  and  lives  in  this  war.  A  unified,  economically 
prosperous  Ireland  could  have  fed  England  in  large 
measure,  and  left  her  free  to  raise  her  army  and  make 
munitions,  and  the  submarine  would  have  been  power- 
less to  touch  one  shipload  of  produce  plying  across  the 
Irish  Channel.  As  it  is,  England  has  had  to  buy  her 
suppHes  from  several  nations,  and  the  long  sea-haul 
has  been  over  open  waters  where  the  submarine  has 

^  See  Appendix,  "  Irish  Agriculture." 


190  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

sunk  an  ever-growing  number  of  food-ships.  By  post- 
poning the  settlement  of  Ireland's  status  as  an  autono- 
mous nation  inside  the  British  commonwealth,  England 
has  lessened  her  own  food-supply  and  lengthened  the 
war.  As  long  as  Ireland  is  poHtically  in  a  fever,  she 
refuses  to  settle  down  to  her  real  job  of  mastering  the 
conditions  of  her  own  life,  which  will  be  determined 
by  better  land  and  more  land,  better  methods  of 
cropping,  fertiHzers,  machinery,  labour  supply,  organ- 
ization for  producing  and  selling,  and  railroad  facilities. 
There  would  be  little  value  in  writing  one  more  con- 
tentious article  on  Ireland.  So  with  the  charges  of 
a  national  incompetency  and  inefficiency,  which  those 
who  deny  self-government  to  Ireland  allege  as  the 
ground  for  their  denial.  They  find  this  incapacity 
due  to  three  defects  in  Irish  character  :  laziness,  a 
tendency  to  dissension,  and  a  tendency  to  grafting. 
They  say  that  the  Irishman  is  not  a  confirmed  worker, 
that  he  loves  to  wrangle,  and  that  he  favours  his 
friends  at  the  expense  of  his  community  when  he  is 
in  political  ofhce.  The  Irish  reply,  "  the  penal  laws, 
the  ascendancy  system,  the  union  with  its  anti-Irish 
'  National  *  schools,  its  '  West  Briton '  ideals,  martial 
law,  these  are  the  causes  of  that  national  incompetency 
of  ours. ' '  One  remembers  in  this  connection  the  famous 
passage  of  Graham  Wallas  in  "  The  Great  Society  " 
on  the  rights  of  little  nations  : 

Athens  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifth 
century  B.C.  was  not  well  governed ;  and  if  the 
British  Empire  had  then  existed,  and  if  Athens 
had  been  brought  within  it,  the  administration  of 


IRELAND 


191 


the  city  would  undoubtedly  have  been  improved 
in  some  important  respects.  But  one  does  not 
like  to  imagine  the  effect  on  the  intellectual  output 
of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  if  even  the  best  of  Mr. 
Rudyard  Kipling's  public-school  subalterns  had 
stalked  daily  through  the  agora,  snubbing,  as  he 
passed,  that  intolerable  bounder  Euripides,  or 
clearing  out  of  his  way  the  probably  seditious 
group  that  were  gathered  round  Socrates. 

The  time  for  argument  on  what  Matthew  Arnold 
called  "  barren  logomachies "  is  past.  Ireland  will 
soon  receive  her  independence  in  the  British  common- 
wealth. The  time  for  action  has  come,  and  that  action 
must  proceed  out  of  Irishmen  in  productive  agriculture, 
efficient  industry,  and  clean  and  tolerant  government. 

Among  the  happy  communities  of  the  past  were  the 
Greek  city  states,  the  twelfth-century  communes,  and 
the  pioneering  settlements  of  America.  They  were 
happy  because  the  citizens  had  a  measure  of  equality 
and  because  the  terms  of  life  included  spiritual  values. 
Life  was  not  organization,  knowledge,  work,  pleasure, 
efficiency,  but  through  these  means  developed  an 
excellence  of  its  own  finer  than  the  machinery  through 
which  it  functioned  and  the  material  on  which  it 
worked.  By  the  natural  conditions  of  the  country 
and  the  temperament  of  the  people  Ireland  is  fitted 
to  be  one  of  the  happy  communities  of  human  history 
instead  of  a  land  of  sorrows.  Peasant  proprietorship 
in  a  fertile  country  among  a  people  of  social  and 
imaginative  nature  ought  to  take  the  ciu-se  from  life, 
because  hfe  under  such  conditions  offers  equality,  inter- 
course, prosperity,  and  a  free  play  for  spiritual  values. 


192  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

No  old  time  battle-cry  or  politico-economic  dogma 
can  survive  in  the  light  of  to-day's  facts.  Landlord- 
ism was  the  old  cry,  and  it  expressed  a  hideous  injus- 
tice. But  "  if  all  rent  were  abolished  in  Ireland 
to-morrow  the  chief  difficulties  of  the  Irish  farmer 
would  remain  what  they  are.  It  would  not  raise  the 
price  of  anything  the  farmer  has  to  sell,  or  increase  the 
produce  of  an  acre  of  his  land."  "  The  long  war  over 
the  land,  which  resulted  in  the  transference  of  the 
land  from  landlord  to  cultivator,  has  advanced  us  part 
of  the  way,  but  the  Land  Acts  offered  no  complete  solu- 
tion. We  were  assured  by  hot  enthusiasts  of  the 
magic  of  proprietorship,  but  Ireland  has  not  tilled  a 
single  acre  more  since  the  Land  Acts  were  passed.  The 
welfare  of  Ireland  depends  mainly  upon  the  welfare 
of  the  Irish  farmer." 

So  it  is  worth  considering  his  case  in  detail.  A 
clear  statement  of  it  is  given  by  A.  E.,  who  is  one 
of  the  three  men  at  the  head  of  the  co-operative  move- 
ment.   He  says : 

The  small  farmer  is  the  typical  Irish  countryman. 
The  average  area  of  an  Irish  farm  is  twenty-five 
acres  or  thereabouts.  We  can  imagine  to  ourselves 
an  Irish  farmer  with  twenty-five  acres  to  till,  lord 
of  a  herd  of  four  or  five  cows,  a  drift  of  sheep,  a 
litter  of  pigs,  perhaps  a  mare  and  foal :  call  him 
Patrick  Malony  and  accept  him  as  symbol  of  his 
class.  ...  He  is  fruitful  enough.  There  is  no 
race  suicide  in  Ireland.  His  agriculture  is  largely 
traditional.  His  butter,  his  eggs,  his  cattle, 
horses,  pigs,  and  sheep  are  sold  to  local  dealers. 
He  might  be  described  almost  as  the  primitive 


IRELAND  193 

economic  caveman,  the  darkness  of  his  cave 
unillumined  by  any  ray  of  general  principles.  .  .  . 
The  culture  of  the  Gaelic  poets  and  story-tellers, 
while  not  often  actually  remembered,  still  lingers 
like  a  fragrance  about  his  mind.  We  ponder  over 
Patrick,  his  race,  and  his  country,  broo(ing  whether 
there  is  the  seed  of  a  Pericles  in  Patrick's  loins. 
Could  we  carve  an  Attica  out  of  Ireland  ? 

Before  Patrick  can  become  the  father  of  a  Pericles, 
before  Ireland  can  become  an  Attica,  Patrick  must 
be  led  out  of  his  economic  cave.  .  .  .  Our  poets 
sang  of  a  united  Ireland,  but  the  unity  they 
sang  of  was  only  a  metaphor.  It  mainly  meant 
separation  from  another  country.  Individualism, 
fanatically  centring  itself  on  its  family  and  family 
interests,  interfered  on  public  boards  to  do  jobs 
in  the  interests  of  its  kith  and  kin.  The  co-operative 
movement  connects  with  living  links  the  home, 
the  centre  of  Patrick's  being,  to  the  nation,  the 
circumference  of  his  being.  ...  I  believe  the 
fading  hold  the  heavens  have  over  the  world  is 
due  to  the  neglect  of  the  economic  basis  of  spiritual 
life.  The  co-operative  movement  alone  of  all 
movements  in  Ireland  has  aspired  to  make  an 
economic  soHdarity  in  Ireland. 

The  social  and  economic  service  of  co-operation 
is  this  :  it  enables  farmers  to  own  and  use  modern 
machinery,  to  buy  feeding  material,  manures,  and 
seeds,  and  to  construct  fertilizer  plants  at  low  cost, 
standard  quality,  and  on  large  scale.  It  gives  control 
over  markets,  and  slowly  improves  the  transportation 
facilities  for  produce.  It  sells  to  advantage  through 
its  own  agents  instead  of  through  a  long  circuit  of 
middlemen.    It  gives  a  system  for  borrowing  money 

N 


194  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

at  a  lower  interest  and  for  a  longer  term.  It  pools 
the  ideas  of  many  men  and  gives  an  interchange  and 
interaction  of  ideas,  leading  to  close,  hard,  economic 
thinking,  invention  and  discovery,  and  a  widespread 
intellectual  fertihzation.  In  one  place  where  a 
creamery  was  nearly  started,  the  co-operators  report, 
the  whole  scheme  was  destroyed  by  the  announce- 
ment of  a  leader  of  public  opinion  that  "  every  pound 
of  butter  must  be  made  on  Nationalist  principles  or 
not  at  all."  But  the  work  of  uncoiling  ancient  griev- 
ance from  constructive  enterprise  goes  on,  and  pros- 
perity cures  ill  will.  You  will  see  in  a  single  village 
the  co-operative  societies  supplying  seeds,  manures, 
and  machinery  to  the  farmers,  establishing  credits, 
marketing  eggs  gathered  by  the  women,  running  a 
station  to  improve  the  breed  of  poultry,  conducting  a 
knitting  industry,  and  selling  groceries  and  provisions.^ 
There  comes  a  limit  of  saturation,  and  co-operation 
has  probably  sucked  up  as  many  peasants  as  its  present 
capacity  admits.  That  capacity  must  be  increased 
if  co-operation  is  to  increase  in  the  next  twenty  years 
at  the  rate  of  the  last  twenty.  More  and  better  land, 
now  held  by  landlords  for  grazing,  must  be  freed  for 
tillage.  The  existent  railways  must  provide  better 
facilities  for  farmers.  A  system  of  spur  railways  to 
mine-pit  heads  and  of  light  railways  ^  through  neg- 
lected districts  must  be  established.    The  village  of 

1  See  the  reports  of  the  Irish  Agricultural  Organization  Society, 
"  Sir  Horace  Plunkett."  by  Edward  E.  Lysaght,  "  The  National 
Being,"  by  A.  E.,  and  the  first  I.A.O.S.  leaflet  by  Sir  Horace  Plun- 
kett. 

See  Appendix,  "  Irish  Railways.** 


IRELAND  195 

Belmullet  in  western  Mayo  is  forty-six  miles  from  a 
railroad.  There  are  anthracite  seams  a  few  miles 
out  from  Dublin.  Seven  miles  of  light  railway,  at 
a  cost  of  $1,250,000,  would  connect  the  mine  with 
its  market,  and  reduce  the  cost  of  that  coal  from  forty- 
three  or  forty-five  shillings  to  twenty-five  shillings.^ 
One  of  the  young  Irish  leaders  says,  "  Any  extensive 
working  of  Irish  coal  or  copper  is  contingent  on  the 
assent  of  the  vast  British  mining  interest  to  Irish  com- 
petition." The  creation  of  machinery  and  fertilizers 
must  be  undertaken  on  a  larger  scale.  In  short, 
production  must  be  increased  by  the  appHcation  of 
capital.  Can  that  capital  be  found  ?  Will  it  be  by 
Irish  parliamentary  grant,  by  Irish  taxation,  or  by 
foreign  investment,  or  will  the  co-operators  themselves 
be  willing  to  lay  aside  a  percentage  of  their  profit  for 
the  purpose  of  extending  the  movement  till  it  has 
embraced  all  Ireland  ?  A  solution  must  be  found,  for 
a  movement  either  grows  or  dies. 

The  present  situation  is  abnormal.  The  estimated 
value  of  Irish  exports  to  Great  Britain  for  1916  is 
over  two  hundred  milHon  dollars'  worth.  Before  the 
war  they  averaged  about  one  hundred  and  forty 
millions.  A  clear  gain  in  money  of  sixty  miUion  dollars 
has  flowed  in  to  Irish  farmers.  Fish,  butter  and  eggs 
have  at  times  been  held  up  for  lack  of  shipping, 
but  that  is  because  the  shipping  has  been  destroyed 
on    other   hauls,    which  would   have   been  in  part 

"  The  service  of  light  railways  to  a  community  can  be  realized  by 
reading  "  Land  and  Labour — Lessons  from  Belgium,"  by  Seebohm 
Rowntree.     See  also  Appendix,  "  Light  Railways." 


196  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

unnecessaxy  if  Irish  agriculture  were  developed  up  to 
capacity. 

Ireland  sends  live  stock  and  the  produce  of  live  stock 
to  Great  Britain.  She  sends  sheep  and  mutton, 
bacon,  ham,  live  pigs,  poultry,  butter,  and  eggs.  Next 
to  the  production  of  live  stock,  the  marketing  of  butter 
is  the  most  important  industry.  The  farmer  has 
received  increased  prices  to  account  for  most  of  this 
gain,  but  the  production  also  has  been  somewhat 
increased.  Some  of  this  extra  money  has  gone  for 
increased  cost  of  production,  feeding  stuffs,  and  fer- 
tihzer.    The  rest  of  the  money  has  been  banked. 

"  The  last  two  years  are  the  most  phenomenal  in 
Ireland's  history,*'  says  the  department  of  agriculture, 
and  they  tell  me  that  "  the  farmer  has  come  off  in  a 
gold  coach "  during  these  war  months.  Plunkett 
House,  headquarters  of  the  co-operators,  tells  me  that 
there  is  undoubtedly  more  money  return,  but  that  the 
farmer's  live-stock  has  been  sold,  and  must  here  placed, 
and  that  his  plant  has  deteriorated,  so  that  he  isn't 
greatly  better  off  in  productive  wealth.  Such  a  thing 
as  agreement  on  any  matter  in  Ireland  is  not  obtainable 
in  the  present  atmosphere  of  passion.  It  is  probable 
that  the  law  of  gravitation  violates  the  Sinn  Fein 
principle  of  self-help,  and  that  the  ethics  of  the  gospel 
are  under  suspicion  in  four  counties  of  Ulster.  "  What 
too  many  people  in  Ireland  mistake  for  thoughts  are 
feelings.  Passion  has  become  dominant  in  our  politics." 
But  in  the  end  Ireland  must  be  ruled  not  by  rhetoric, 
but  by  "  first  "class  thinking  on  the  life  of  the  country- 
man.   The  genius  of  rural  life  has  not  yet  appeared." 


IRELAND  197 

The  Irish  situation  is  the  heritage  of  landlordism, 
usury,  famine,  land  legislation,  grazing,  emigration. 
When  these  had  operated,  Ireland  was  reduced  in 
population,  and  the  good  land  was  let  out  in  vast 
grazing  tracts,  and  the  poorer  land  was  crowded  by 
farmers.  These  crowded  areas  are  called  congested 
districts.  The  congested-districts  board  exists  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  those  areas  up  into  holdings, 
enlarging  existing  holdings  till  they  become  a  *'  paying 
proposition '!  instead  of  uneconomic,  making  roads, 
and  creating  new  holdings.  This  is  a  long  job,  and 
will  consume  many  years  before  completion.  It 
requires  both  time  and  money,  and  there  is  a  shortage 
of  money,  as  the  British  Government  has  shut  down 
on  the  extension  of  financial  help. 

"  Counties  like  Meath,  with  the  richest  land  in  Ire- 
land, are  under  grass  and  virtually  destitute  of  all  life 
save  the  bullocks  which  graze  in  their  fields." 

The  total  cultivated  area  of  Ireland  is  2,400,000 
acres.  In  pasture  and  grazed  mountain  land  there 
remain  12,500,000  acres.  Live  stock  is  to  crop  pro- 
duction as  four  is  to  three.  There  were  500,000  acres 
in  wheat  in  1851.  In  1914  there  were  36,000,  a 
decrease  of  92I-  per  cent.  The  total  decrease  in  tillage 
has  been  seventy  per  cent.  Eleven  per  cent,  of  Ire- 
land is  now  arable  land,  and  sixty-four  per  cent,  hay 
and  pasture.  Eleven  per  cent,  of  France  is  hay  and 
pasture,  and  fifty-two  per  cent,  arable  land. 

The  land  acts  are  permissive,  not  compulsory,  and 
the  landlord  can  refuse  to  sell.  He  does  so  refuse, 
and  continues  td  hold  the  land  for  grazing.    Compul* 


198  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

sory  purchase  was  proposed  in  a  bill,  but  the  land- 
lords' convention  rejected  the  bill,  and  the  British 
Government  was  unwilHng  to  press  a  contentious 
measure. 

While  I  was  in  Ireland  the  Earl  of  Meath  had  his 
estate  agent  write  in  reply  to  a  request  that  he  allow 
his  uncultivated  land  to  be  parcelled  out  for  the  pro- 
duction of  food : 

His  lordship  is  in  sympathy  with  the  general  idea 
that  more  land  should,  during  the  war,  be  brought 
under  cultivation  for  the  production  of  food.  Lord 
Meath  has  not  a  large  quantity  of  land  in  Bray,  and 
he  would  be  glad  to  know  if  others,  who  may  have 
more,  have  been  appr/)ached  by  your  society  and, 
if  not,  why  this  has  not  been  done.  He  considers 
[  that  the  supply  of  milk  in  a  populous  district  hke 
Bray  is  a  more  pressing  question  than  that  of  any 
other  kind  of  food,  and  that  any  diminution  in 
grazing  lands  would  inevitably  raise  its  price. 
For  these  reasons  Lord  Meath  cannot  see  his  way 
to  accede  to  your  request. 

In  his  case  the  request  had  been  made  that  a  por- 
tion of  land  be  given  to  meet  the  national  need.  But 
the  same  refusal  is  widely  met  when  compensation  is 
offered.  By  a  liberal  use  of  state  credit  the  farmer 
has  got  back  some  of  the  land  which  was  taken  away 
from  his  grandfather.  He  has  paid  a  fair  price  for 
purchase,  which  is  from  twenty  to  forty  per  cent, 
below  his  old  rents.  One  farmer,  for  instance,  now 
pays  fourteen  pounds  a  year  toward  the  purchase  of  his 
holding  where  he  used  to  pay  eighteen  pounds  in  rent. 
But  the  process  is  slow  and  partial.    So  in  Ireland 


IRELAND  199 

to-day  there  is  still  an  unappeased  land  hunger.  Still 
the  holdings  are  often  too  small  and  too  poor.  Still 
half  the  land  is  held  by  landlords,  and  agriculture  is 
crippled.  The  Irish  radicals  write  of  the  late  Home 
Rule  Bill : 

There  is  no  provision  for  ever  transferring  land 
purchase  in  Ireland  to  the  control  of  the  Irish 
ParUament.  It  will  be  at  least  eighty  years  before 
land  purchase  is  completed. 

There  are  five  million  good  acres  which  ought  to 
be  brought  back  under  tillage  at  once.  If  any  of  this 
land  could  be  held  by  the  farmer  on  a  full  year's  lease, 
it  would  come  under  the  terms  of  the  *'  agricultural 
holding  "  acts,  and  automatically  would  be  open  for 
tillage.  But  the  landlord  let 5  it  out  for  grazing  for 
eleven  months,  and  then  snaps  it  back  for  the  last 
month,  so  as  to  evade  the  provisions  of  the  law.  This 
*'  eleven  months*  lease "  is  as  noisome  in  Ireland 
as  the  injunction  in  America.  As  there  is  an  immed- 
iate market  for  cattle,  the  small  farmers  bid  against 
one  another  for  grazing  land.  They  cannot  afford 
to  wait  for  the  slower  greater  market  for  grain  which 
would  be  theirs  if  they  boycotted  the  grazing  lands 
till  the  owners  sold  them  for  tillage.  .  Nothing  short 
of  a  mandatory  state  policy  will  cure  this  primary  cause 
of  Irish  poverty. 

Every  statement  of  an  economic  situation  requires 
careful  qualification.  Ireland  has  made  a  steady 
gain  since  the  ebb-tide  of  the  1850's.  Her  deposits 
and  cash  balances  in  joint-stock  banks,  post-ofiice  and 


200  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

trustee  savings-banks,  were  recently  $410,000,000 
as  against  $145,000,000  in  1871.  She  held  $235,000,000 
in  government  stocks  two  years  mgo.  The  business 
of  the  railways  nearly  doubled  in  thirty  years,  though 
much  of  this  money  went  into  EngHsh  hands,  and  the 
railway  system  is  imperfect  and  ununified.  In  1871 
her  emigration  was  71,000 ;  in  1914,  20,000.  No 
picture  of  degeneration  fits  the  facts.  But  the  recon- 
structive legislation  and  state  grants  and  credit  system 
have  brought  Ireland  only  half-way.  A  bolder,  more 
drastic  programme  must  now  be  adopted  if  she  is  to 
overcome  poverty  and  become  the  productive  country 
which  is  her  true  destinj^.  Machinery  and  fertilizer 
must  be  purchased  on  a  far  larger  scale,  the  land  must 
be  opened  up,  a  better  system  of  cropping  used,  fac- 
tories for  agricultural  plant  must  be  established, 
housing  must  be  bettered.  Faith  in  her  future  is  what 
Ireland  needs  from  her  friends,  and  money  as  the 
expression  of  that  faith.  The  labour  and  trade- 
unionists  of  Ireland  have  faced  this  situation,  and  the 
conference  stated : 

We  demaiiti  that  steps  be  taken  immediately 
to  bring  under  cultivation  large  areas  of  the  grazing 
lands — ^by  direct  labour  on  an  extensive  scale 
under  the  Department ;  by  empowering  County 
Councils  to  proceed  on  similar  lines ;  by  calling 
upon  all  local  authorities  to  utilize  every  acre 
of  suitable  land  within  their  areas  now  lying  idle 
for  spade  cultivation,  for  potatoes  and  vegetables  ; 
by  offering  advances  of  capital  to  local  bodies 
where  necessary  to  finance  these  schemes ;  to 
make  unprofitable  by  punitive  taxation  the  keeping 


IRELAND  201 

out  of  cultivation  of  excessive  proportions  of 
agricultural  holdings,  and  that  the  Government 
grant  facilities  for  the  manufacture  and  importation 
of  agricultural  machinery  and  fertilizers  and  their 
distribution  at  actual  cost. 

The  Irish  party's  committee  on  food  supply  protests 
against  the  delays  of  the  past,  and  urges  that  the 
congested-districts  board  and  estates  commissioners 
should  be  equipped  to  proceed  with  the  permanent 
division  of  grass-lands.  It  advocates  compulsory 
tillage.  This  would  mean  that  the  Government 
demands  that  the  holder  till  a  percentage,  say  from 
ten  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  (later  to  be  increased)  of 
his  land.  The  small  farmer  would  thus  be  required 
to  till  six  or  seven  acres  instead  of  four  or  five. 

His  reply  will  be,  Where  can  I  get  the  labour  ? 
'*  The  disease  which  has  attacked  our  great  popula- 
tions here  and  in  America  is  a  discontent  with  rural 
life."  In  less  than  fifty  years  300,000  agricultural 
labourers  have  left  the  Irish  fields  for  American 
factories.  Till  the  war  fifty  thousand  Irishmen  every 
year  went  to  England  and  Scotland  for  the  harvest. 
(That  fell  to  13,000  in  the  first  year  of  the  war.)  The 
department  of  agriculture  reports,  "  There  has  been 
for  many  years  a  marked  scarcity  of  agricultural 
labourers  in  Ireland.*'  In  1871  there  were  446,000 
male  agricultural  labourers  and  62,000  female.  In 
191 1  there  were  fewer  than  200,000  male,  and  there 
were  only  4,000  females. 

The  reason  is  plain  :  better  wages  are  obtainable 
elsewhere.    In  19 14  the  agricultural  wage  of  Ireland 


202  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

had  a  cash  value  of  eleven  shillings  and  threepence 
a  week.  Why  did  not  the  farmer  pay  more  ?  He 
was  not  able  to.  The  average  cash  return  to  all  classes 
connected  with  the  farm,  farmer-owner,  farmer-tenant, 
and  labourer,  when  added  together  and  averaged,  was 
only  twelve  shillings  and  ninepence,  so  the  farmer  was 
paying  all  he  could  afford. 

"Only  higher  production,  through  better  land, 
machinery,  and  co-operation,  can  solve  the  wage  of  the 
farm-hand.  The  labourers  will  never  be  half  so 
numerous  as  farmers,  for  Ireland  is  ''  a  country  of 
small  holdings,  where  the  farmer  and  his  family  are 
themselves  labourers.*'  The  co-operative  ownership 
of  expensive  machinery  will  increasingly  lead  to  the 
communal  employment  of  the  labourer  as  a  skilled 
mechanic  by  the  co-operative  community.  If  the 
belief  of  the  co-operators  comes  true,  that  in  half  a 
century  the  whole  business  of  rural  Ireland  (and  that 
is  over  seventy  per  cent,  of  Ireland)  will  be  done 
co-operatively,  then  we  have  the  solution  for  the 
present  scarcity  of  labour.  ''  The  agricultural  labourers 
will  gradually  become  skilled  mechanics,  able  to  direct 
threshers,  binders,  diggers,  cultivators,  and  new 
implements  we  have  no  conception  of.  They  will  be 
members  of  the  society,  sharing  in  its  profits  in  pro- 
portion to  their  wages,  even  as  the  farmer  will  in 
proportion  to  his  trade.  The  labourers  will  form 
societies  for  collective  farming  as  in  Rumania  and 
Italy.''  It  is  possible  that  in  this  direction  may  lie 
the  solution  not  only  for  the  labourer,  but  for  the 
bringing  of  Ireland  back  to  tillage,  for  land  purchase 


IRELAND  203 

is  doubtless  dead.  Neither  England  nor  Ireland  will 
have  any  money  for  land  purchase  after  this  war. 
The  money  will  go  into  industry  and  for  the  wages 
of  industrial  workers.  But  by  letting  out  the  great 
grazing  estates  to  groups  of  labourers,  the  productive 
power  of  Ireland  will  be  increased. 

There  is  no  quick  way  through  the  tangle.  The 
Irish  question  can  be  solved  only  by  the  people  them- 
selves. Can  they  create  a  good  life  for  their  com- 
munity ?  Can  they  conduct  a  clean  government  ? 
Can  they  release  productive  power  in  the  nation,  so 
that  pauperism  and  ignorance  and  dissension  will 
decrease  ?  Can  they  lift  clear  of  their  past,  forget 
injustice  and  misery,  and  establish  a  co-operative 
commonwealth  ?  With  the  coming  of  autonomy  Ire- 
land will  begin  to  face  her  real  problem. 


CHAPTER  V 
SOCIAL    STUDIES 

WHAT  OF  ENGLAND  ? 

To  feel  the  spirit  of  a  nation  at  war  is  one  thing  and  an 
easy  thing.  You  cannot  help  being  caught  into  the 
current  of  their  will  and  purpose.  But  to  convey  that 
spirit  to  your  busy  friends  three  thousand  miles  away 
is  a  much  harder  thing.  I  have  been  going  around 
from  man  to  man  in  England,  trying  to  get  that  phrase 
and  summary  which  would  make  the  British  response 
clear  to  our  people. ^  Each  one  of  these  men,  who  has 
been  good  enough  to  pause  in  his  war  work  to  help 
me,  has  given  a  flash  of  the  island  spirit. 

Lord  Northcliffe  said  to  me  : 

"  No  one  will  accuse  me  of  failing  to  criticize  the 
mistakes  of  the  British  army  in  the  early  months. 
But  I  want  you  to  know  that  to-day  we  have  the 
finest  fighting-machine  in  the  world.  It  has  taken 
time  to  build  it,  but  now  we  have  it.  Tell  your  people 
that." 

Viscount  Bryce  said  to  me  : 

'*  The  British  people  are  unanimous  as  they  have 
never  been  before." 

*  A  satisfying  record  of  this  e£fort  and  the  spirit  behind  the  effort 
is  given  in  the  day-by-daj'  notes  of  the  best  of  war-correspondents, 
Phihp  Gibbs. 

204 


SOCIAL  STUDIES  205 

A  police  commissioner  of  Scotland  Yard,  in  charge 
of  the  secret  service,  said  to  me  : 

"  Have  you  noticed  in  talking  with  the  pacifists 
how  discouraged  they  seem  ?  They  have  no  sense 
of  a  growing  movement.  They  are  disheartened 
because  the  great  mass  of  the  British  people  are  not 
supporting  them."  Then  he  turned  to  his  telephone 
and  gave  instructions  to  call  up  Portsmouth  and 
find  out  the  time  of  arriyal  of  the  hospital-ship.  His 
wounded  son  was  due  home  from  France. 

G.  K.  Chesterton  said  to  me  : 

"  Democracy  is  on-  the  march.''  His  brother  is 
a  private  in  the  ranks. 

Lloyd  George  talked  with  me  of  the  welfare  work 
at  that  time  carried  on  for  the  ministry  of  munitions  by 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  who  had  turned  from  his  own 
factories  of  several  thousand  workers  to  care  for  the 
health  of  a  half  miUion  Government  employees. 

"  Here,"  said  Lloyd  George,  "  is  the  greatest 
attempt  ever  made  by  a  Government  to  surround 
the  lives  of  the  workers  with  safeguards  for  their 
health  and  well-being.  And  it  was  the  making  of 
munitions  that  brought  us  to  it.  It  was  war  and 
shells.  It  is  always  true  that  humanity  has  to  descend 
into  hell  in  order  to  rise  again  the  third  day.  It  is 
only  through  hell  that  it  can  achieve  its  resurrection." 

But  not  all  these  distinguished  men  together  have 
quite  revealed  the  central  flame,  and  then  suddenly 
it  was  shown  to  me  by  a  girl.  She  is  a  wage-earner 
in  London,  and  every  day  on  her  way  to  her  office  she 
passes  Fishmongers'  Hall  by  London  Bridge.    This 


2o6  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ancient   place  has  been  converted  into  a   military 
hospital.    To  the  house-surgeon  she  wrote  this  letter  : 

Dear  Sir,  I  am  taking  the  liberty  to  write  to  you 
to  ask  if  it  is  true  that  often  a  soldier's  wound 
could  be  the  easier  and  the  better  healed  were  there 
plenty  of  skin  available  to  graft  on  to  the  wound  ? 
I  have  been  told  that  many  wounds  are  badly 
healed  because  the  doctors  cannot  get  skin.  If 
this  is  so,  I  would  consider  it  an  honour  to  be 
allowed  to  put  myself  at  your  disposal  at  any  time 
in  order  that  my  skin  might  be  taken  to  graft  on 
to  a  wound ;  I  am  prepared  to  give  as  much  as 
would  be  practicable  to  take  from  me. 

This  is  no  impulsive  movement  on  my  part.  I 
am  obliged  to  come  to  town  each  day  to  earn  my 
own  living,  and  am  therefore  debarred  from  working 
for  the  soldiers  as  other  girls  of  my  own  age  are 
doing.  I  have  two  brothers  fighting,  and  for  their 
sakes  I  feel  I  must  do  something.  I  am  writing  to 
your  hospital  because  I  know  of  nowhere  else ; 
if  you  can  find  no  use  for  my  services  I  shall  be 
obliged  if  you  will  kindly  inform  me  where  I  could 
go. 

Why  They  Will  Win 
England  is  at  war  en  masse,  and  the  proof  of  it  is 
not  that  she  has  raised  an  army.  Any  country  can 
raise  an  army  if  it  has  to.  The  proof  of  it  is  that  she 
has  changed  a  cherished  habit.  That  means  a  spiritual 
change.  It  is  a  lot  harder  to  break  up  a  habit  than  it 
is  to  fight  an  enemy.  The  fact  that  four  million 
persons  are  saving  money  to  give  to  the  Government 
for  carrying  on  the  war  is  the  clearest  single  proof  that 
the  EngUsh  nation  is  at  war.    By  temperament  the 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  207 

English  are  a  colonizing,  adventurous  people.  That 
means  they  are  an  open-handed  people,  to  whom 
the  careful  ways  of  thrift  are  distasteful.  Then,  too, 
they  are  a  race  of  individualists,  doing  what  they  like 
with  their  own — a  race  to  whom  collective  effort  is 
a  bore.  But  they  violated  their  instinct  in  order  to 
win  this  war.  For  the  English  were  free  spenders, 
and  it  revealed  more  devotion  in  them  to  raise  over 
one  hundred  million  pounds  in  individual  subscriptions 
than  it  did  to  raise  five  miUion  men  in  recruiting. 

One  has  to  show  the  English  effort  in  these  broken 
bits  and  flashes  rather  than  by  any  one  overmastering 
display.  That  is  because  England  is  a  tangled,  self- 
willed  democracy,  of  a  vast  variety  of  purpose.  But 
when  England  began  to  alter  its  life,  to  sacrifice  what 
was  precious  and  ancient,  then  it  became  clear  that 
she  had  committed  herself  beyond  recall,  that  she 
was  moving  to  an  end  beyond  defeat. 

The  appeal  for  war  savings  was  a  general  appeal 
made  to  all  classes  of  the  country.  It  put  money 
into  the  hands  of  the  Government  with  which  to  wage 
war.  That  money  is  spent  for  production  by  the 
nation  instead  of  being  spent  for  consumption  by  the 
individual  person.  The  terms  of  the  arrangement 
gave  to  the  "  saver  "  security,  an  excellent  rate  of 
interest,  and  the  opportunity  of  withdrawal  at  any 
time.  This  use  of  money  frees  labour  from  "  luxury  " 
work  to  necessary  work.  The  man  grooves  a  big  gun 
instead  of  pulling  candy.  The  woman  makes  shells 
instead  of  fancy  waists.  This  release  of  labour  con- 
centrates the  national  effort  on  the  work  of  victory 


2o8  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

instead  of  leaving  the  workers  dispersed  among  para- 
sitic trades. 

The  heart  of  the  war-savings  scheme  is  this  :  you 
buy  a  "  war-savings  certificate  "  for  fifteen  shilHngs 
and  sixpence.  In  five  years  the  Government  will 
give  you  a  pound  for  it.  Of  course  the  worker  cannot 
make  an  investment  of  fifteen  shillings  and  sixpence  at 
one  time.  So  he  joins  an  association  in  his  school, 
factory,  store,  or  club,  and  subscribes  his  penny  or 
sixpence  each  week.  These  associations  are  like 
American  fraternal  organizations.  They  appeal  to 
the  social  sense  of  the  group.  There  are  other  forms 
of  war  saving,  such  as  exchequer  bonds,  but  this  system 
of  certificate  is  the  popular  way.  It  is  co-operative 
investment. 

If  the  person  does  not  belong  to  an  association,  he 
receives  a  war-savings  card,  'with  thirty-one  spaces 
on  it,  each  for  a  sixpenny  stamp.  He  buys  the  stamps 
at  the  post-ofiice  as  often  as  he  can.  When  the  card 
is  full,  he  hands  it  in,  and  receives  a  certificate,  worth 
fifteen  shillings  and  sixpence,  and  good  for  a  pound 
at  the  end  of  five  years. 

Such  speakers  as  Lennox  Gilmour,  of  the  national 
war-savings  committee,  go  around  the  country  addres- 
sing men  and  women  in  factories,  and  boys  and  girls 
in  schools.  This  is  one  of  the  stories  used  by  Mr. 
Gilmour  in  his  campaign  : 

"  I  met  in  a  railway  carriage  a  man  who  had  just 
returned  from  the  front.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Army  Service  Corps,  and  I  got  into  conversation  with 
him.    In  the  course  of  our  talk  he  said  : 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  209 

"  *  I  arp  one  of  those  chaps  that  always  like  to  prove 
what  I  say.^  Would  you  mind  looking  at  my  pay- 
book.' 

"  This  in  support  of  some  assertion  he  had  made. 
I  replied  that  I  should  be  delighted,  and  I  looked  at 
his  pay-book.  The  last  entry  was  three  hundred 
francs,  which  he  had  drawn  for  his  holiday ;  and 
immediately  in  front  of  that  there  was  an  entry, 
'  War-savings  certificates  £10  is.  6d.,'  which  is  the 
price  of  thirteen  war-savings  certificates. 

"  I  said,  '  1  see  you  have  some  of  these  war-savings 
certificates.' 

''  *  Yes,  and  I  am  going  to  get  some  more.' 

"  '  How  did  you  get  these  ? ' 

"  '  Well,'  he  said,  '  we  get  them  in  the  squadron.' 

"  '  Did  any  other  chaps  get  them  ?  ' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,  they  did.' 

"  I  said,  '  How  did  your  squadron  do  ? ' 

"  '  Well,'  he  said,  '  I  will  tell  you.  There  are  five 
squadrons  in  our  base  camp,  and  mine  did  the  best 
of  the  lot.' 

"'What  did  it  do?' 

"  '  There  are,'  he  said,  *  a  hundred  and  fifty  men  in 
a  squadron,  and  we  contributed  £2,239.' 

"  '  What,'  I  asked,  '  did  the  other  four  squadrons 
do?' 

"  He  laughed.    '  They  did  £200  among  them.' 

"  '  Well,'  I  said,  '  there  is  always  an  explanation 
for  everything.  Why  did  your  Squadron  do  so  well, 
and  why  did  the  other  squadrons  do  so  poorly  ? ' 

" '  You   see,'   he   replied,    '  our   major   was   keen, 
o 


210  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  he  spoke  to  every  one  of  us  and  told  us  what 
we  ought  to  do.' 

"  I  asked,  '  And  the  other  majors,  what  did  they 
do?' 

"  '  They  handed  out  the  leaflets/  " 

That  is  the  secret  of  the  success  which  has  attended 
this  evangelistic  campaign.  It  is  the  personal  appeal, 
friend  speaking  to  friend.  And  the  motive  for  giving 
is  rendered  in  the  headhnes  of  the  pamphlets  and 
posters :  *'  Save  for  England."  "  Save  for  your 
country." 

In  North  Nibley,  one  of  the  smallest  villages  in 
Gloucestershire,  the  inhabitants  subscribed  ;fi6  in  a 
fortnight. 

Wigston  Magna,  in  Leicestershire,  is  in  the  centre 
of  the  hosiery  and  boot-making  district.  One  of  the 
factories  has  between  three  hundred  and  four  hundred 
operatives.  That  factory  purchased  two  hundred 
certificates  in  one  week. 

Yarmouth  has  fifty  associations  and  four  thousand 
members,  and  has  subscribed  two  thousand  pounds. 
This  city  lies  on  the  east  coast,  where  the  Zeppelins 
have  stimulated  the  civilian  consciousness. 

It  was  out  from  Grimsby  that  the  fishing-trawlers 
have  been  lost  by  mines  and  submarines.  The  answer 
of  Grimsby  was  made  by  seventy-three  war-savings 
associations.  In  one  week  4,600  certificates  were  pur- 
chased. 

At  an  East  End  factory  in  London  123  girls  joined 
the  savings  crusade  in  a  single  week.  Only  two  girls 
are  not  members.    In  three  months  the  girls  saved 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  211 

over  £50.  They  did  it  by  chipping  in  their  three- 
penny and  sixpenny  bit  each  week. 

Norwich  paid  into  the  post-office  ;£  15,000  in  six  weeks. 

The  boot  and  shoe  operatives  of  Northampton  are 
subscribing  one  thousand  pounds  a  week. 

Keighley,  in  Yorkshire,  is  the  heart  of  the  woollen 
trade.  It  makes  uniforms  for  the  Russian  army. 
It  saves  one  thousand  pounds  a  week,  an  average 
of  six  shillings  and  eight  pence  for  every  inhabitant. 

The  domestic  servants  of  GiUingham,  in  Kent,  have 
united  in  a  war-savings  association.  This  reminds 
me  of  the  touching  gift  of  ten  shillings  which  I  once 
received  from  an  English  housemaid  for  ambulance 
work  in  Belgium.  Let  no  one  doubt  the  spirit  in  which 
this  money  of  humble  persons  is  given.  It  is  given 
because  a  little  nation  was  crushed,  and  because  their 
brothers  and  lovers  are  fighting  to  free  that  little 
nation.  No  high-blown  dreams  of  empire,  no  lust 
for  territory,  no  desire  for  power  and  \vealth,  are 
in  these  obscure  gifts.  They  are  conscience-money 
to  Belgium.  They  are  the  pitiful  earnings  of  a 
democracy  passed  over  to  a  suffering  people. 

In  Plymouth,  with  its  docking  and  shipping  trade, 
eighteen  thousand  persons  began  to  save  in  one  week. 

At  Preston,  in  Lancashire,  £20,000  was  turned  over 
to  the  Government  by  the  workers  in  the  period  of 
four  months. 

There  is  an  elementary  school  for  350  boys  near 
Newcastle.  The  boys  brought  in  £800  from  their 
famines  in  eight  weeks,  and  then  kept  up  the  average 
of  £100  a  week. 


212  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

In  Battersea  one  of  the  school-boys  brought  in  the 
sum  of  £ioo  in  pennies  collected  among  the  three 
hundred  boys  and  their  v/orking  families  in  ten  months. 

The  thing  that  irritates  Americans  about  England  is 
the  same  thing  that  offends  them  at  home.  Here 
is  no  well-oiled  autocracy  that  runs  on  a  single  track 
to  a  visible  goal.  Instead  of  that  clean,  smooth, 
organized,  docile  affair,  it  is  a  democracy,  with  an 
immensely  rich  variety  of  life  sprawling  all  over  the 
place.  The  air  is  full  of  voices,  because  every  one  is 
allowed  to  speak.  If  you  don't  like  it,  remember  what 
it  is  that  you  don't  like  :  it  is  a  free  people,  choosing 
to  make  its  own  mistakes,  living  its  own  life,  and  just 
now  out  on  the  war-path  to  chase  some  trespassers 
off  the  premises.  Doubtless,  if  the  critics  were  run- 
ning the  performance,  they  would  give  a  more  unified 
and  polished  proceeding.  But  no  group  of  persons 
are  running  this  war.  The  people  are  running  it. 
So,  instead  of  losing  strength  as  the  pressure  increases, 
they  gather  force  and  momentum  with  each  mistake. 
They  teach  themselves  by  failure.  The  will  of  the 
great  German  general  staff  can  be  snapped  by  defeat, 
because  the  staff  is  a  handful  of  men.  But  the  will 
of  40,000,000  people  cannot  be  broken,  because  it  is 
the  will  of  these  school-boys  and  working-girls,  of 
domestic  servants  and  munition-workers,  of  a 
democracy  whose  sense  of  pity  and  justice  has  been 
touched.  The  mistake  in  estimating  the  English  effort 
is  to  measure  it  at  any  given  time,  because  it  is  a 
continually  growing  effort.  It  is  like  a  gathering  of 
waters  from  mountain  streams  and  the  drift  of  hills 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  213 

and  from  inexhaustible  rains.  The  confluence  keeps 
widening  and  deepening  from  a  thousand  tributaries. 
The  pool  can  be  emptied,  and  soon  it  is  not  only  filled 
again,  but  is  larger  than  before. 

The  English  are  a  "  sentimental  nation."  I  quote 
a  distinguished  English  officer  when  I  say  that.  It 
is  true.  They  are  as  sentimental  as  Americans.  An 
appeal  to  cold  reason,  to  personal  aggrandizement, 
to  a  rainy  day,  or  to  a  shadowy  future,  does  not  move 
them  in  the  slightest.  But  something  that  concerns 
the  welfare  of  helpless  children  or  of  persons  whom 
they  love  releases  all  that  is  best  in  the  English  race. 
I  know  this,  because  I  worked  in  a  Red  Cross  London 
office  in  the  early  weeks  of  the  war,  and  I  found  that 
the  smallest  appeal  to  the  English  public  for  help  in 
clothing  Belgians  brought  in  a  large  response — a 
response,  in  fact,  so  overwhelming  that  it  stuffed  the 
office  rooms  with  supplies.  Personally  I  hav5  never 
dealt  with  a  public  that  is  so  swiftly  generous.  When 
the  full  facts  of  Belgian  relief  are  made  public,  it  will 
be  found  that  it  is  the  English  who  have  fed  them 
and  sheltered  them,  raised  the  greater  part  of  the 
money,  widened  and  adjusted  their  own  home  life  in 
order  to  absorb  an  army  of  refugees,  and  steadily 
continued  to  provide  funds  without  spurts  and  without 
fatigue.  No  better  proof  of  this  racial  sentiment  and 
kindliness  can  be  had  than  by  studying  a  few  of  the 
fifty-four  milHon  posters  and  leaflets  of  recruiting, 
and  the  hundreds  of  thousand  pubHcations  for  war 
saving.  The  appeal  is  rarely  to  self-interest.  The 
appeal  is  to  the  heart,  to  the  great  objects  of  the  war 


214  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  ideal  of  liberty,  the  cause  of  freedom.  This 
national  saving  is  not  being  done  by  obscure,  hard- 
working Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  to  make  their 
own  old  age  cosy.  It  is  being  done  to  free  Belgium 
and  strengthen  democracy.  If  the  evangelists  who 
have  gone  about  Britain  preaching  war  savings  had 
spoken  to  a  commercial  motive,  they  would  have 
whistled  in  vain. 

The  Decay  of  Parliament 

To  control  vast,  irresponsible  economic  power 
will  be  the  task  of  Parliament ;  but  here  we  meet 
with  a  new  war-created  problem.  During  the  war 
Parliament  has  largely  lost  its  control  over  govern- 
ment, which  is  administered'  to-day  by  a  temporary 
group  of  lawyers,  financiers,  and  imperialists,  sur- 
rounded by  a  larger  group  of  permanent  expert  officials. 
And  this  group  in  turn  is  enlarged  by  a  small  army  of 
volunteer  social  workers.  Not  only  do  these  hidden 
experts  administer  government,  but  they  create  new 
legislation.    As  a  Government  investigator  reports  : 

"The  change  in  the  mode  of  industrial  legisla- 
tion may  be  summed  up  as  a  tendency  to  move 
from  the  politician  towards  the  expert.'' 

Even  before  the  war  men  were  saying :  "  The 
political  machine  of  to-day  pre-supposes  that  popular 
opinion  shall  have  no  initiative.  Officialdom  increases 
at  the  expense  of  the  remaining  social  classes." 

This  is  a  tendency  in  the  direction  of  bureaucracy, 
and  the  value  of  it  rests  in  the  intelligence  and  character 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  215 

of  these  inner  manipulators  and  their  responsiveness 
to  public  need.  In  the  first  two  years  of  war,  the 
Government  appointed  105  committees  to  investigate 
reconstruction  problems.  A  committee  sits  on  its 
bill  of  recommendations,  like  a  hen  on  its  nest,  and 
rises  with  a  cackle.  Sometimes  the  product,  when 
hatched,  is  as  distressing  and  unexpected  as  a  duck's 
egg  in  the  poultry  farm.  I  suspect  that  the  recon- 
struction committee  and  the  franchise  committee  are 
going  to  find  that  their  sober,  well-rounded  draft  of 
recommendations  will  develop  startling  methods  of 
locomotion. 

Sidney  Low  in  the  "  Fortnightly  Review  "  implies 
that  Parliament  has  ceased  to  be  a  Government- 
making  organ,  and  that  government  in  the  future 
will  continue  to  be  carried  on  by  great  administrative 
commissions  appointed  by  the  Cabinet,  directly 
responsible  to  it,  and  removed  from  the  direct  control 
of  Parliament.  A  violent  shifting  is  taking  place 
in  the  nice  balance  of  power  of  Bagehot's  English  Con- 
stitution, throwing  control  to  the  executive  and  expert, 
and  away  from  the  geographical  representative. 

The  democratic  machinery  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury has  broken  down.  A  new  machinery  is  being 
slowly  constructed.  Under  the  old  regime,  elected 
representatives  of  the  people  became  the  law-making 
body,  the  Legislature,  and  a  committee  of  the  Legis- 
lature was  selected  to  be  the  Cabinet,  or  Executive.- 
But  in  recent  years  there  has  grown  up  a  body  of 
nearly  a  thousand  Departmental  administrators,  out- 
side Parliament,  housed  in  Government  Departments. 


2i6  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

This  bureaucracy  is  a  set  of  permanent  expert  officials, 
who,  actually,  not  only  administer  the  law  as  created 
by  Parliament,  but  initiate  new  legislation,  which  is 
carried  into  effect  over  the  head  of  Parliament,  because 
it  is  drafted  into  bills  by  these  experts,  handed  to  the 
Cabinet  by  them,  and  made  into  Acts  by  the  power  of 
the  Cabinet  exercised  on  Parliament.  So  Parliament 
has  tended  to  become  a  ratifying  voice,  instead  of  a 
law-making  body.  r'-\ 

The  Cabinet,  also,  has  changed.  The  various  depart- 
mental heads,  who  used  to  sit  around  as  "  Cabinet 
Ministers  '*  and  confer,  have  been  forced  back  into 
their  function  as  administrators  of  departments.  A 
small  body  of  men,  just  now  five  in  number,  form  the 
Directorate  of  Government.  The  change  from  twenty- 
three  executives  to  five  gives  centralization  of  power, 
and  exactly  located  responsibility.  The  few  can  get 
results  and  they  can  be  held  to  account,  where  the 
many  dodged  both  action  and  "  strict  accountability." 
The  change  is  similar  to  that  which  has  taken  place  in 
several  hundred  American  city  governments.  Under 
the  old  ward  system,  we  used  to  elect  twenty  or  thirty 
men  to  "run"  a  city.  Now  we  elect  a  commission 
government  of  five  men,  with  full  power  and  responsi- 
bility, who  select  their  departmental  administrative 
staffs. 

The  five  who  rule  Britain  are  called  the  War  Council. 
When  peace  comes,  it  is  probable  that  the  old  extended 
Cabinet  will  temporarily  revive  and  resume  its  activities 
as  a  debating  society  with  diffused  unlocated  responsi- 
bility  and   weakened   executive    power.     But    that 


SOCIAL  STUDIES  217 

machinery  is  outworn  and  is  sure  to  be  scrapped.  It 
was  constructed  on  the  theory  that  the  state  is  made 
up  of  citizens,  who  can  conduct  their  corporate  life 
through  representatives.  That  theory  is  an  over- 
simpHfication  of  government. 

To  sum  up  present  tendencies  : — The  executive  is 
rapidly  defining  itself  and  constructing  its  machinery. 
It  is  tending  toward  the  organized  state  directed  by  a 
few  powerful  executives,  surrounded  by  administrative 
departments.  It  has  outpaced  the  Legislature,  which 
is  drifting  impotent  on  the  tide  of  state  socialism, 
devised  by  expert  officials  and  enacted  by  the  handful 
of  five  men  in  control*  of  government.  This  new' 
legislation  was  demanded  by  the  community,  not 
primarily  through  its  Parliamentary  representatives, 
but  by  the  new  channels  of  the  press,  suffrage  societies, 
trade  unions,  and  Government  departments  (military, 
naval,  mimitions,  Board  of  Trade,  Home  Office,  and 
Local  Government  Boards). 

But  not  only  has  the  Legislature  been  outpaced. 
Democratic  control  over  these  executives  and  experts 
has  failed  to  keep  step  with  the  rapid  growth  in  their 
power.  The  community  has  not  yet  devised  checks 
upon  them.  Representatives  in  Parliament,  elected 
from  geographical  localities,  are  now  seen  to  be  only 
one  of  the  needed  effective  controls.  The  citizen  is 
not  only  and  essentially  a  resident  in  an  area  called 
Battersea,  who  elects  a  Battersea  man  to  safeguard 
Batter  sea  interests.  The  citizen  is  also  a  producer 
and  a  consumer,  and  he  wishes  those  functions  safe- 
guarded in  government.    The  citizen  as   consumer 


2i8  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

is  gradually  establishing  co-operation,  and  local  and 
national  ownership.  As  a  producer,  he  strengthens 
whatever  trade  union  he  belongs  to  (whether  as 
doctor,  business  man,  barrister,  teacher,  railwayman, 
or  locomotive  engineer)  and  is  slowly  but  increasingly 
establishing  local,  district,  and  national  parliaments 
in  his  profession  and  industry.  Through  workshop 
council,  joint  district  board,  and  national  conciliation 
committees,  he  is  asserting  a  control  on  government. 
Already  it  is  unquestioned  that  the  demands  of  such 
a  union  as  the  miners'  are  more  effective  in  creating 
new  legislation  than  the  demands  of  members  of 
Parliament.  To  co-ordinate  these  parallel  and  con- 
flicting claims  will  be  the  coming  task  of  government. 
The  result  will  be  a  remodelled  British  Constitution. 
The  present  total  eclipse  of  Parliament  is  more  com- 
plete than  it  will  be  after  the  war.  Some  of  Parlia- 
ment's former  power  will  return  to  it.  A  resultant 
will  be  established  between  the  various  pressures  of 
producers  and  consumers,  between  syndicalism  and 
co-operation  and  state  and  municipal  socialism.  But 
less  and  less  will  the  citizen  of  the  future  vote  simply 
as  a  Brighton  Unionist  or  as  a  Houndsditch  Liberal. 
The  old  party  idea  has  b^en  sapped  by  the  railroad, 
the  telegraph  and  the  newspaper,  and  geographical 
representation  has  been  weakened  by  the  recognition 
of  function  in  citizenship,  replacing  the  idea  of  *'  the 
political  man,"  who  is  a  brain-created  figment  like 
"  the  economic  man."  The  citizen  will  vote  as  a 
mining  producer  and  as  a  food  consumer.  His  political 
power  will  lie  in  his  building  trade  combine  and  his 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  219 

trade  union  as  well  as  in  his  district  representation. 
The  party  words  '*  Tory ''  and  "  Liberal "  may  in 
time  become  quaint  relics. 

A  Batch  of  Papers 

Instead  of  writing  this  like  a  sociological  report,  I 
shall  tell  what  I  like  and  dislike  about  British  journal- 
ism. I  like  Chesterton's  paper,  "  The  New  Witness," 
since  G.  K.  C.  has  taken  it  over.  Others  that  write 
his  style  annoy  me,  as  an  echo  in  the  auditorium 
annoys  an  audience  who  want  to  hear  the  speaker 
himself.  I  like  ''  The  New  Witness  "  because  Gilbert 
K.  Chesterton  seems  to  me  the  best  thing  England  has 
produced  since  Dickens.  I  like  the  things  he  believes 
in,  and  I  hate  sociological  experts  and  prohibitionists 
and  Uhlan  officers,  which  are  the  things  he  hates.  I 
feel  in  him  that  a  very  honest  man  is  speaking,  and 
am  glad  of  his  views  even  when  I  respectfully  differ 
from  him.^  He  is  a  useful  corrective  on  public  opinion, 
too.  He  dislikes  the  servile  state,  by  which  he  means  the 
coming  orderly,  regimented  Utopia  of  the  rich.  That 
is  the  kind  of  talk  we  need,  because  all  of  us  in  social 
work  (and  who  isn't  a  social  worker  to-day  ?)  are 
for  ever  hunting  and  harrying  the  poor,  itemizing  their 
food-supply,  shading  off  just  the  proportion  of  caloric 
difference  between  starvation  and  under-nourishment. 
And  when  we  catch  the  line  where  the  poor  satisfy  us 
that  they  can  pull  through,  we  are  going  to  impale 
them  with  a  minimum  wage.    As  a  journalist  Chester- 

»  As  in  the  matter  of  Jews,  peasant  proprietorship,  and  control  of 
the  liquor  trafl&c. 


220  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

ton  puts  only  about  a  quarter  of  himself  into  action. 
But  even  a  quarter  of  Chesterton  is  good  measure. 
He  leaves  out  all  his  overtones,  the  lilting  verse  and 
jovial  stories  and  incomparable  essays,  those  flashes  of 
good  criticism  and  exultation.  He  works  very  hard 
at  his  journalism.  That  is  why  he  doesn't  do  it  so 
well  as  his  careless  things,  which  give  him  fun.  But 
for  all  that  there  are  few  editorial  pages  in  England 
or  the  United  States  written  with  the  snap,  wit,  and 
honest  humanity  of  his  paragraphs.  I  hope  he  won't 
blunt  himself  by  overwork.  It  would  be  an  inter- 
national loss  if  that  sane,  jolly  mind  is  bent  to  routine. 
England  has  need  of  him.  There  is  something  cosmic 
about  English  plans  of  reconstruction,  something  of 
the  weary  load  of  destiny  about  their  imperial  common- 
wealth. It  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  be  able  to  remind 
ourselves  that  the  same  race  that  produced  Curzon 
and  Milner  and  Carson,  heavy  men,  with  a  sense  of 
predestined  seriousness,  after  all  produced  Chesterton. 
I  have  to  jump  the  Irish  Sea  in  order  to  find  anything 
so  much  in  earnest  and  gay  as  the  *'  New  Witness  " 
in  these  months  of  management  by  one  who  tells  me 
that  he  is  "  the  worst  editor  in  the  civilized  world, 
perpetually  busy  without  ever  being  businesslike." 
I  think  the  independent  spirited  Httle  Irish  weeklies 
are  admirable.  They  sass  the  censor  and  the  lord 
lieutenant  and  the  Castle.  I  met  some  of  the  editors, 
poor  men  and  honest,  editing  and  writing  papers  in 
which  they  beheve.  They  seemed  to  me  worth  all 
the  sleek,  timid  New  York  crowd  put  together.  They 
speak  their  heart  out,  then  take  the  galley  proof 


SOCIAL  STUDIES  221 

around  to  the  censor,  and  he  slashes  out  "  seditious  ** 
paragraphs,  and  they  pubHsh  about  half  their  heartful, 
I  have  seen  these  carved-up  galleys  and  the  pleading, 
warning,  threatening  letters  of  the  censor.  These 
journalists  are  pretty  much  everything  in  their  shop 
— editor  and  contributor  and  proof-reader  and  office 
boy — because  their  papers  are  often  one-man  concerns. 
A  man  believes  something  hard,  and  being  Irish,  he  has 
the  knack  of  statement,  so  he  publishes  a  paper.  One 
of  them  told  us  he  had  a  weekly  circulation  of  10,000  ; 
another  had  6,000.  These  weeklies  have  literary 
quality.  One  of  them,  ''  New  Ireland,"  is  stuffed  full 
of  good  things  by  A.  E.,  James  Stephens,  Katharine 
Tynan,  and  the  rest  of  that  gifted  group.  There  is 
something  pathetic  about  the  editors  I  am  speaking  of  ; 
I  met  several  of  them.  I  don't  mean  pitiable,  because 
you  don't  pity  men  who  are  better  than  you  are. 
But  there  seemed  something  hopeless  about  the 
success  of  their  efforts  within  any  span  of  time  that 
would  concern  them  at  all.  I  suppose  it  is  just  an 
extension  of  the  feeling  that  we  have  about  any  clean, 
unrewarded  effort  in  this  present  world  of  ours  where 
men  of  the  sort  of  these  Irish  editors,  with  fine  hopes 
about  humanity  in  their  heart,  go  lean  and  tired  to 
their  grave.  Some  of  them  are  already  in  prison,  and 
more  of  them  will  be  there  before  the  Irish  question 
is  well  settled. 

Coming  back  to  England,  one  has  to  have  '*  The 
Nation."  It  is  much  like  our  own  "  New  Republic." 
But  what  is  a  discovery  in  "The  New  Republic" 
becomes  a  formula  in  "  The  Nation,"    "  The  New 


222  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Republic  *'  is  cock-sure,  omniscient,  and  *'  I'm  not 
arguing  with  you  ;  Tm  telling  you,"  because  its  back- 
ground is  scanty,  and  it  has  the  freshness  of  a  virgin 
mind.  "  The  Nation  "  is  all  background,  and  so  is  a 
little  weary.  It  has  the  slightly  fatigued  mind  of  one 
who  has  lived  a  lifetime  with  the  noble  aspirations  of 
our  better-class  radicals,  and  needs  a  change,  but  won't 
take  it.  But,  for  all  that,  it  seems  to  this  reader  the 
best  weekly  in  England,  and  it  comes  closer  to  inter- 
preting the  vital  thought  of  England,  the  currents  of 
tendency,  than  any  paper  known  to  me.  It  is  of 
course  well  v^Titten,  a  quality  it  shares  with  forty  other 
papers.  That  gift  of  a  good  working  style  is  rather 
widespread.  It  comes  of  having  a  literary  tradition 
and  a  well-read  university  crowd.  There  must  be  two 
or  three  hundred  men  in  England  with  a  clear  and 
satisfactory  technique. 

Examples  of  it  are  found  in  the  "  middle  articles  " 
in  "  The  Spectator/'  and  the  clever  pointed  opening 
paragraphs  of  "  The  Saturday  Review,"  stating 
the  news  of  the  week  in  one  hundred  word  summaries, 
which  are  equally  charming  on  the  death  of  a  Greek 
professor  and  the  rotten  radicalism  of  modern  thought. 
I  like  "  The  Saturday  Review,"  "  The  National 
Review,"  and  "  The  Morning  Post "  for  an  agreeable 
irritability  which  they  have  in  common.  They  react 
to  Americans,  Germans,  labour,  radicalism,  and  the 
Irish  with  a  fine,  fresh  enthusiasm,  which  results  in 
lively  writing.  In  this  bad  modern  world  they  have 
lost  their  larger  public,  and  they  see  their  future  trailed 
out  behind  them  like  a  foamy  wake,  but  they  go  into 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  223 

dissolution  with  a  zest.  The  war  has  partly  spoiled 
their  pleasure,  because  German  misdeeds  gave  them 
a  legitimate  and  a  popular  object  of  attack,  and  for  a 
time  they  had  to  endure  a  certain  measure  of  public 
favour,  as  men  who  had  told  you  so.  But  as  labour 
takes  control  of  a  new  province  every  month,  and  as 
radicalism  honeycombs  the  British  commonwealth, 
they  are  regaining  their  ancient  role  of  Cassandra. 

Lately  the  "Athenaeum"  has  undergone  the  same 
change  which  the  English  community  is  undergoing. 
It  has  turned  itself  into  a  once-a-month  organ  of  social 
reform,  and  is  performing  an  immensely  valuable 
service  in  keeping  its  eye  on  the  *'  fundamentals  "  in 
reconstruction. 

To  talk  of  English  weekly  journalism  and  omit 
Horatio  Bottomley  and  his  *'  John  Bull "  would  be 
as  unfortunate  as  dropping  George  Cohan  and  Billy 
Sunday  from  a  hst  of  leaders  of  American  thought. 
Very  simply  Bottomley  said  recently  : 

I  speak  as  the  editor  of  a  journal  which  enjoys  a 
circulation  and  wields  an  influence  unique  in  news- 
paper history ;  and  as  one  who,  for  good  or  evil, 
has  gained  the  ear  and  the  confidence  of  a  sufficient 
section  of  the  British  public  to  make  or  unmake 
Ministers. 

Stated  with  true  British  restraint,  that  is  a  mini- 
mum appraisal  of  the  place  Bottomley  holds  in  public 
esteem.  In  the  same  issue  Lloyd  George  learns  he 
is  not  to  be  broken  at  the  first  kick-off.  '*  So  long  as 
he  does  this — ^but  not  a  day  longer — ^he  may  rely,  for 
what  it  may  be  worth,  upon  my  unqualified  and  dis- 


224  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

interested  support."  I  heard  a  British  colonel  say  the 
other  day  that  Bottomley  should  have  been  in  the 
Cabinet.  He  writes  a  picture-post-card  style,  like  that 
of  Arthur  Brisbane,  which  is  spotted  with  battle-cries 
and  catch-phrases  such  as  "  a  business  Government," 
"  Germany's  Death-rattle."  He  has  a  genuine  pity 
for  the  lot  of  the  poor,  and  I  think  in  that,  and  not 
in  his  raw  conceit  and  vulgarity  and  barrenness  of 
ideas,  lies  the  secret  of  his  hold  on  a  portion  of  the 
people.  When  it  ^comes  to  the  downright  spade-work 
of  reconstruction,  where  bright  phrases  are  not  a  sub- 
stitute for  hard  thinking,  I  foresee  a  sharp  tussle  for 
mastery  between  the  Bottomley  type  of  mind  and  the 
real  leaders  of  England,  who  put  fundamental  brain- 
work  on  the  industrial  and  imperial  problems.  Mean- 
while I  read  "  John  Bull,"  and  so  does  England.^ 

There  is  no  wrench  in  passing  from  Bottonaley  to 
Lord  Northcliffe.  Both  are  "  practical  men,"  who 
want  things  done  now.  Northcliffe  is  a  big,  genial 
man,  carrying  a  sense  of  immediate  power.  He  sug- 
gested to  me  a  cross  between  a  district  leader  and  a 
captain  of  industry.  He  will  do  anything  for  you  per- 
sonally, like  a  Tammany  boss.  It  expresses  a  genuine 
human  liking  in  his  make-up.  He  cuts  across  lots  to 
get  into  action.  He  talks  well,  and  has  a  hard  horse 
sense  that  has  served  England  in  the  present  crisis. 
Whether  he  will  continue  to  be  of  value  will  depend 
on  his  ability  to  broaden  his  vision  of  the  industrial 
struggle.  He  has  the  arrogance  of  men  who  make  swift 
decisions,  and  who  are  in  the  position  to  carry  them 
'  See  Appendix,  "  Horatio  Bottomley." 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  225 

out.  He  has  a  sharpened  sense  of  reahty,  but  it  is  a 
materiahstic  sense.  Whether  he  will  help  the  new 
world  after  the  war  is  a  question  that  is  troubling  all 
who  have  watched  his  astonishing  career  and  realize 
his  force.  His  "  Times ''  is  a  very  great  newspaper, 
greater  in  its  synthesis  of  news  and  in  its  special  articles 
than  any  known  to  me  in  France  or  America.  Because 
of  the  influence  of  such  a  master  of  public  opinion, 
there  is  a  danger  that  England  may  too  hastily  reshape 
its  ideals.  Because  it  has  been  slow  and  unorganized 
it  is  turning  to  American  and  Prussian  methods. 
But  it  will  be  a  loss  if  it  lets  in  the  whole  materialistic 
philosophy  of  results,  success,  and  efficiency.  And 
just  here  is  the  problem  of  a  man  like  Lord  North- 
cHffe,  because  he  is  a  sort  of  Prussian  superman,  who 
is  death  on  slackness,  but  blind  to  any  meaning  that 
can't  be  caught  inside  of  three  dimensions.  He 
discerns  certain  of  the  creative  elements  in  the  coming 
England :  organization,  efficiency,  business  methods, 
government  by  experts.  He  has  a  knack  of  playing 
on  the  impulses  and  motives  of  the  democracy.  But  at 
least  two  of  the  papers  controlled  by  him  do  not  believe 
in  the  best  qualities  of  the  masses  of  men  whom  they 
are  leading.  They  see  that  average  human  nature  is 
easily  flattered,  is  loaded  to  the  gunwale  with  preju- 
dices, and  that  it  can  be  manipulated  by  phrases  promis- 
ing action.  Excitement,  change,  the  sense  of  "  some- 
thing doing,"  are  pleasurable  to  the  average  man.  A 
newspaper  programme  which  "  makes  and  unmakes  " 
ministers,  creates  heroes  and  villains,  wrecks  and 
reconstructs,  gives  a  continuous  performance  of  moving 
p 


226  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

pictures  to  its  readers.  In  the  flicker  of  the  fihn  ideas 
and  true  poHtical  poHcy  lose  their  sovereignty.  By 
making  use  of  the  new  forces  of  democracy,  such  men 
as  the  modern  popular  journalists  may  have  it  in  their 
power  a  little  to  misdirect  them.  This  failure  of  sane 
public  opinion  to  register  itself  is  almost  inevitable  in 
a  society  where  the  milHonaire  proprietor  is  able  to 
conduct  a  chain  of  newspapers  which  reflect  his  own 
mind,  and  which  slightly  misrepresent  his  readers 
in  certain  matters  by,  giving  them  what  they  want  in 
the  general  news  of  the  world,  in  pictures,  and  admirable 
special  articles,  and  in  hammering  through  a  pro- 
gramme of  reconstruction,  much  of  which  is  sound 
and  responsive  to  the  needs  of  the  community. 

"  The  New  Statesman,"  with  its  authoritative 
supplements,  "  The  New  Age,'*  popularizing  the  trade 
guild  idea,  the  "  Cambridge  Magazine,"  with  its  digest 
of  foreign  opinion,  and  "  The  New  Europe,"  are  quite 
irreplaceable,  because  no  other  periodicals  fulfil  their 
function. 

Just  as  labour  has  failed  as  yet  to  produce  its 
political,  industrial  and  artistic  leaders,  so  it  has  failed 
as  yet  to  create  a  periodical  which  fully  expresses  its 
aspirations.  Such  an  organ  would  have  a  circulation 
of  several  million  copies,  instead  of  the  small  choice 
circulation  of  in4:ellectualistic  papers  like  "  The  Labour 
Leader,"  and  ''  The  Herald,"  which  are  delightful 
reading  but  which  represent  valuable  sections  of  the 
labour  movement,  rather  than  the  mass  movement 
itself.  Let  it  be  said,  however,  that  the  analyses  by 
PhiHp  Snowden,  Ramsay  Macdonald,  Cole,  Hobson, 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  227 

and  H.  N.  Brailsford  are  not  to  be  neglected  by  any 
one  who  enjoys  acute  thinking.  And  the  same  reader 
wiU  find  power  in  the  verses  of  Ewer,  and  a  true  spiritual 
quality  in  the  homilies  of  George  Lansbury. 

The  illustrated  weeklies  are  a  "  treat."  One 
wonders  why  the  United  States  has  nothing  com- 
parable. In  fairness,  let  me  state  that  "  The  Satur- 
day Evening  Post "  and  "  Collier's  Weekly  "  meet  a 
need  which  is  unmet  in  England.  And  of  monthly 
popular  periodicals  there  is  nothing  in  the  British  list 
so  good  as  '*  Scribner's,"  "  The  Century,"  "  Harper's," 
"  The  Metropolitan,"  and  several  more. 

"  The  Manchester  Guardian "  is  one  of  the  best 
newspapers  in  England.  To  praise  its  editorials,  its 
dramatic  reviews,  its  balance  of  news,  its  judicial,  and 
yet  spirited,  attitude  to  custom  and  change,  is  "  a 
work  of  supererogation."  It  is  as  good  as  an  amalgam 
of  *'  The  Springfield  Republican,"  "  The  Kansas  City 
Star,"  and  ''  The  Dallas  News." 

"  The  Westminster  Gazette  "  has  a  delightful  literary 
department  where  they  turn  English  verses  into 
decasyllabic  Latin,  develop  the  capabilities  of  words 
whose  initial  letter  is  z,  and  write  tiny  essays  on 
"  How  to  Enter  an  Omnibus."  The  leaders  in  "  The 
Westminster "  are  among  the  most  influential  in 
England. 

A.  G.  Gardiner  writes  political  studies  and  character 
sketches  in  his  **  Daily  News  "  that  remind  an  American 
of  Colonel  Watt er son's  best  work. 

I  have  read  J.  L.  Garvin  for  many  years,  because 
he  is  honest  and  intelligent  and  earnest.    Lately  he 


228  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

has  felt  the  necessity  of  "  putting  a  punch  "  into  it 
every  week  till  he  writes  portentously  of  *'  tanks/* 
which  should  be  left  for  Chesterton,  and  of  the  map 
of  Europe,  which  is  the  vested  interest  of  Hilaire 
Belloc. 

The  best  writers  of  Great  Britain  sprinkle  them- 
selves about  on  the  editorial  pages  in  a  way  that  makes 
the  breakfast  paper  a  voyage  of  discovery.  Kipling, 
Wells,  Galsworthy,  Robert  Bridges,  William  Watson, 
and  Shaw  are  far  more  generous  to  their  public  for  a 
ha'penny  and  a  penny  than  Mrs.  Wharton  and  Mr. 
Howells  are  to  us  for  anything  short  of  a  quarter  and 
thirty-five  cents. 

The  individualistic  penny  and  tuppenny  weeklies 
and  monthlies  are  unfailingly  bright.  It  seems  strange 
to  me  that  we  have  nothing  of  the  sort  in  America. 
The  suffrage  papers  ;  the  one-man  affairs,  like  Sarolea's 
*' Everyman '\-  ''The  British  Weekly,"  with  its 
excellent  literary  letter  by  Robertson  NicoU ;  "  The 
Christian  Commonwealth,'*  with  its  analysis  of  labour 
conditions  and  of  advanced  Nonconformist  thought, 
**  Common  Sense  " — ^all  combine  to  give  the  impres- 
sion of  a  self-conscious  public  opinion  fed  and  renewed 
by  the  free  play  of  the  individualistic  mind.  Christabel 
Pankhurst  has  her  "  Britannia,"  in  stern  advocacy  of 
the  war,  and  Sylvia  Pankhurst,  repudiated  by  her 
mother,  flies  peace-doves  from  her  "  Woman's  Dread- 
nought." 

Of  the  heavier  reviews,  "  The  Fortnightly,"  "  Nine- 
teenth Century "  and  "  The  Contemporary  "  are 
valuable  for  obtaining  that  sweep  of  international 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  229 

affairs  of  which  we  in  America  catch  hardly  a  gUmpse 
in  our  popular  magazines. 

But  the  best  of  the  reviews  to  my  taste  is  '*  The 
Round  Table."  Men  Hke  Lionel  Curtis,  Ker,  and  A.  E. 
Zimmern  are  working  here  at  the  principles  of  recon- 
struction for  industry  and  the  empire.  It  is  solid, 
close-wrought  work,  wrestling  at  the  problems  of  the 
niodern  world  with  an  absence  of  theory  and  rhetoric. 
No  other  single  publication  recently  has  had  the 
influence  of  *'  The  Round  Table  '*  in  directing  British 
public  opinion,  I  am  told.  "  The  Round  Table " 
helped  to  prepare  the  ground  for  the  changes  which 
came  through  with  the  war.  They  and  a  half  dozen 
other  periodicals  and  the  Fabian  group  and  the 
Workers'  Educational  Association  and  the  workers 
themselves  have  between  them  sprung  the  most 
dramatic  revolution  in  one  hundred  years,  and  it  is 
still  only  in  its  faint  beginnings. 

Somebody  is  going  to  tell  me  that  my  list  isn't 
complete,  and  that  I  have  omitted  the  most  weighty, 
the  most  significant  paper  on  the  island.  But  this  is 
not  a  catalogue,  and  it  is  not  a  guide  to  self-help.  It 
would  be  impertinent  for  an  outsider  to  criticize  or 
attempt  to  "  place  "  British  journalism.  All  that  is 
intended  here  is  an  expression  of  what  "  strikes " 
one  American  who  reads  for  pleasure. 

Free  Speech 

One  of  our  most  prominent  American  social  workers 
returned  home  the  other  day  from  a  foreign  tour.  She 
was  quoted  as  saying  that  she  had   found  liberty 


230  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

suppressed  everywhere.  A  moment  later  in  the 
interview  it  appeared  that  her  experience  in  England 
consisted  in  cutting  across  the  island  and  jumping 
aboard  her  boat  at  Liverpool.  That  lets  her  out.  If 
she  had  remained  in  England  she  would  have  found 
that  liberty  is  a  lively  though  contested  possession 
there  just  now.  In  a  time  of  incalculable  strain  certain 
conscientious  objectors  are  dealt  with  unjustly  and 
shamefully  while  some  thousands  are  dealt  with 
honourably.  And  conscientious  objectors  are  only 
two  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of  claimants  for 
exemption.  These  others  are  in  "  reserved  trades/' 
they  are  the  *'  sole  iupport  "  of  a  family,  they  have 
built  up  an  individual  business.  Conscientious 
objectors  would  never  have  been  heard  from  if  Parlia- 
ment had  not  created  their  status.  There  are  no 
conscientious  objectors  in  Germany ;  there  is  the 
shooting-squad.  There  are  plenty  of  criticisms  that 
lie  against  England  for  mental  sloth,  for  mistaken 
foreign  policy,  for  unconscious  and  deep  pride ;  but 
a  man  is  still  free  in  many  instances  to  carry  out  his 
policy  and  speak  his  mind.  England  still  struggles 
to  be  free.  One  proof  is  this  :  in  the  year  1915  she 
had  698  labour  strikes.  At  once  the  vigilant  critic  of 
England  will  say, ''  The  labouring  man  is  not  patriotic." 
Let  me  first  point  out  that  this  is  an  exactly  opposite 
charge  from  the  charge  that  he  has  lost  his  personal 
liberty.  Secondly,  it  is  untrue.  He  is  patriotic,  but 
he  feels  no  loyalty  towards  the  profit -makers.  The 
striking  miners  were  accused  of  holding  up  coal  from 
the  navy  and  endangering  the  battleship  fleet.     But 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  231 

they  showed  figures  to  a  friend  of  mine  which  proved 
the  exact  point  to  which  they  could  proceed  with  their 
strike  without  lessening  the  source  of  supply  for  the 
navy.  The  worker  is  enough  of  a  man  to  die  for  his 
country  or  work  for  it  till  he  drops  ;  but  he  does  not 
care  to  be  exploited  by  profiteers  under  the  glib 
phrases  of  national  service.  The  labour  situation 
to-day  is  the  proof  that  England  is  free,  though  free 
within  rigid  limits. 

But  England  has  no  publicity  sense.  She  adver- 
tises all  her  blunders  and  crimes,  and  goes  silent  when 
she  does  well.  The  failure  of  Loos  is  publicly  pro- 
claimed. The  Admiralty  competes  with  the  War  Office 
in  giving  bad  impressions  of  great  things  done.  England 
allows  even  in  war-time  a  measure  of  freedom  of 
speech  in  Hyde  Park,  in  "The  Herald,"  ''Common 
Sense,"  ''The  Cambridge  Magazine,"  "  The  Woman's 
Dreadnought,"  "The  Woman  Worker,"  "The 
Labour  Leader,"  "The  Nation,"  "Forward."  She 
allows  it  to  Ramsay  MacDonald,  Philip  Snowden, 
Ponsonby,  Trevelyan,  Lowes  Dickinson,  Morel,  Brails- 
ford,  Lansbury,  Sylvia  Pankhurst,  and  a  hundred  other 
voices  and  organs  that  continue  the  great  tradition  of 
personal  liberty.  But  as  time  passes,  the  restriction 
increases,  the  area  of  privilege  lessens.  And  yet 
wherever  the  War  Office  has  stepped  in  and  encroached 
on  the  liberty  of  the  subject  and  the  claims  of  private 
property,  the  civil  courts  have  upheld  the  rights  of 
the  person  against  military  necessity.  A  series  of 
decisions  in  the  last  two  years  proves  this.  When 
England  has  a  choice  offering  that  would  win  praise 


232  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

and  sjmipathy,  she  puts  a  veil  of  silence  between  the 
attraction  and  the  neutral  public.  To  any  one  that 
understands  England  this  is  agreeable,  because  it  is 
all  a  part  of  her  muddling  greatness.  But  to  an 
outsider  the  din  of  perennial,  lively  protest  seems  like 
the  wail  of  lost  souls,  a  race  sold  to  slavery.  It  has 
given  a  wrong  impression  to  America,  where  it  is  not 
yet  fully  realized  that  the  wealth  of  England  and  the 
industrial  work  of  England  are  the  sources  of  strength 
for  the  Allied  cause,  and  that  the  Somme  offensive 
was  only  the  gentle  prelude  to  the  music  that  will  tune 
up.  And  yet  the  Somme  offensive  sucked  up  the  Ger- 
man forces  from  both  fronts,  let  Italy  and  Russia 
smash  ahead,  and  enabled  France  to  shake  the  army 
corps  from  Verdun.  The  big  guns  and  the  shells  of 
England's  four  thousand  seven  hundred  controlled 
shops  are  the  decisive  factors  of  this  war. 

Now,  while  it  is  a  pity  to  puzzle  us  who  are  Americans, 
there  is  no  serious  harm  in  it.  But  the  real  demerit 
of  putting  the  worst  foot  forward  is  that  it  misleads 
the  enemy  into  thinking  there  isn't  a  big  kick  coming 
from  the  best  foot  in  the  background.  I  am  a  peace- 
loving  man,  and  in  the  interests  of  the  German  peasant 
and  clerk  I  wish  that  Germany  could  have  a  picture  of 
the  English  effort  which  is  only  in  the  first  arc  of  its 
ascending  curve.  The  Government  would  then  with- 
draw its  troops  on  all  fronts,  cede  Alsace-Lorraine, 
sign  treaties,  and  thank  their  tribal  deity  for  the  easy 
terms  of  peace.  The  whole  English  effort  is  the 
spectacle  of  a  democracy  on  the  march.  It  is  accom- 
panied by  grumbles  and  mistakes,  and  is  as  haphazard 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  233 

an  affair  as  our  first  two  years  of  Civil  War  ;  but 
back  of  the  wasted  motion  is  an  inexhaustible  strength. 

The  key  of  the  whole  performance  is  set  by  the 
British  army  and  navy.  No  one  has  perfectly  caught 
the  essential  note  of  the  British  fighting  men.  Mr. 
Kipling  has  a  compelling  way  of  rendering  the  affair. 
Because  he  is  a  man  of  genius,  he  creates  his  effect,  he 
leaves  his  impression  ;  but  his  is  not  an  interpretation 
of  the  spirit  of  these  men  of  the  new  army  so  much  as  it 
is  an  extension  of  his  old  method  of  rendering  Mulvaney 
&  Co.  Mr.  Noyes  has  cast  the  drama  on  sea  and  land 
in  an  heroic  Elizabethan  key,  but  a  modern  democracy 
does  not  play  up  to  his  setting.  It  goes  about  things 
in  its  own  way,  tight-lipped  in  suffering,  and  good- 
humoured  in  bad  weather.  The  War  Office  ought  to 
turn  some  one  loose  among  the  million  in  Picardy 
who  would  really  capture  the  extraordinary  ensemble. 
0.  Henry  would  have  been  the  man  for  this  job. 

There  has  long  been  a  slang  phrase  for  a  man  who 
was  going  out  for  an  evening  of  pleasure  in  the  West 
End  of  London.  When  he  wished  to  say  that  he  was 
planning  a  jolly  supper  party  and  an  evening  at  a  music 
hall,  he  summed  it  up  by  saying  he  was  "  going  west." 
The  men  at  the  front  who  tell  of  the  death  of  a  comrade 
say,  "  He  has  gone  west.'' 

The  British  Tommy  throws  a  lugubrious  exaggera- 
tion of  shrapnel  and  flies  and  trench-mud  into  his 
songs,  fills  his  chorus  with  expressions  of  a  desire  to  go 
home,  and  sticks  it  at  the  Somme.  As  G.  K.  Chester- 
ton said  to  me  : 

*'  The  English  people  have  never  found  their  full 


234  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

expression  in  religion  or  poetry.     It  is  in  humour 
where  the  EngHsh  nature  comes  through/' 

He  sang  for  me  the  following  hymn  of  hate,  used 
at  the  front : — 

I  want  to  go  'ome, 

I  want  to  go  'ome, 

I  don't  want  to  go  to  the  trenches  no  more 

Where  whizz-bangs  and  shrapnels  and  coal-boxes 

roar, 
Tike  me  away  o'er  the  sea 
Where  the  AUymans  can't  get  at  me. 
Oh  my !  I  don't  want  to  die, 
I  want  to  go  'ome. 

The  popular  Tommy  attitude  toward  trench-Ufe 
is  that  of  *'  grousing,"  and  no  one  has  interpreted  this 
so  well  as  one  of  the  men  at  the  front,  Captain  Bruce 
Bairnsfather.  He  gives  no  niock  heroics  about  the 
glory  of  sacrifice'.  His  sketches  are  a  humorously 
disgusted  record  of  water  underfoot,  rain  overhead, 
barbed  wire,  sand-bags,  and  bully  beef.  I  doubt  if 
any  other  nation  in  the  moment  of  supreme  strain 
would  circulate  his  pamphlets  by  the  hundred  thousand 
as  good  recruiting  material. 

But  England  knows  that  if  she  altogether  quenched 
free  speech  she  would  lose  the  war.  She  would  lose 
the  war  because  she  would  be  destroying  the  spirit 
of  her  men,  which^  escapes  the  mud  and  scum  of  things 
by  spattering  them  back  with^  jest. 

Free  speech  is  a  fundamental  requirement  of  English 
nature.  The  Englishman  must  speak  his  mind  openly, 
register    his    "  kick "    against    discomforts,    and    be 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  235 

"  agin'  the  Government."  With  that  clearance  he 
settles  down  to  steady  work.  No  one  knows  what 
would  happen  if  the  nation  were  thoroughly  muzzled. 
The  attempt  has  never  before  been  made.  It  has  been 
made  only  in  part  in  this  war. 

The  Right  of  Asylum 

A  couple  of  critics  of  these  chapters  on  social  change 
have  said  that  I  am  too  buoyant  in  rendering  a  painful 
process.  The  reconstruction  is  not  going  to  be  as 
easy  as  all  that,  they  say.  Unskilled  labour  is  going 
to  have  the  fight  of  its  life.  Women  face  a  bitter 
two  or  three  years.  The  forces  of  reaction  have  been 
strengthened  by  three  years  of  militarism.  The 
trade-unions  have  been  shot  to  pieces  by  the  conces- 
sions they  have  made  under  the  Munitions  Acts.  The 
gains  which  cost  them  three  generations  to  achieve 
have  all  been  swept  away  and  will  never  be  restored. 
A  large  portion  of  the  press  has  been  nothing  but  the 
official  organ  for  doctored  news.  Many  hundreds  of 
men  are  in  jail  because  "  Christianity  has  become 
punishable  by  ten  years'  penal  servitude  under  the 
MiHtary  Service  Act  "  (which  is  a  pungent  reference  to 
conscientious  objectors). 

I  have  given  a  wrong  impression  if  the  reader 
thinks  that  the  principle  of  democratic  control  is 
being  established  without  a  severe  fight ;  but  the 
point  is  that  it  is  being  established.  When  one  has 
only  a  short  time  and  limited  space  at  disposal,  it  is 
hard  to  render  a  social  change  without  either  writing 
wordy  surface  generalizations  or  else  getting  messed 


236  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

up  with  details.  Perhaps  the  simplest  way  of  making 
clear  that  it  has  cost  suffering  to  win  this  freedom, 
is  to  consider  one  application  of  democratic  control 
in  these  years  cf  stress. 

I  choose  the  "  right  of  asylum/*  It  is  a  fair  choice, 
because  the  right  of  asylum  rocked  in  the  balance. 
It  was  violently  assailed  by  the  Scotland  Yard  police 
and  the  Government  itself.  The  hounding  of  Russian 
political  refugees  in  London,  which  has  gone  on  under 
cover  of  '*  military  necessity,"  probably  injured  the 
English  cause  more  severely  in  America  in  the  early 
days  than  any  other  official  blunder  of  the  war.  The 
news  was  spread  broadcast  among  our  social  workers. 

For  centuries  England  has  given  her  hospitality  to 
exiles  from  other  lands  who  had  fled  from  tyranny. 
To  her  in  time  of  persecution  have  come  the  Huguenots, 
Louis  Kossuth,  Mazzini,  Karl  Marx,  Engels,  Bakunin, 
Kropotkin,  French  Communards,  and  now  for  many 
years  Russian  refugees.  As  one  of  the  peers  in  the 
House  of  Lords  said : 

It  has  been  our  boast  for  centuries  that  this 
country  is  a  hospitable  refuge  for  those  who  flee 
from  other  lands.  At  the  time  of  the  Massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew  in  1572  and  of  the  Revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685,  we  were  the  refuge 
for  the  Huguenots.  Victor  Hugo  came  to  Jersey 
to  escape  from  the  despotism  of  Napoleon  III. 
Those  who  have  sought  a  refuge  here  have  been 
subject  to  the  common  law,  answerable  for  their 
actions,  but  not  for  their  opinions. 

Under  cover  of  the  war  the  Scotland  Yard  police 
began   to  harass   the   Russian   refugees   in   London. 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  237 

They  attacked  the  Russian  Seamen's  Union.  The 
Russian  Seamen's  Union  exists  to  fight  the  conditions 
under  which  the  Russian  sailors  work.  It  exposed 
"  the  beating  of  the  men,  their  confinement  in  cages, 
their  being  put  in  chains,  deprived  of  food,  heavy  fines, 
flogging."  It  concerned  itself  with  the  conditions  of 
the  ships  and  the  low  wages.  By  the  Russian  com- 
bination law  the  right  to  organize  was  denied  to  Russian 
seamen,  so  their  union  had  to  locate  its  centre  of 
activity  in  a  foreign  country,  and  chose  Belgium.  It 
was  driven  out  from  Antwerp  in  October  of  19 14  by  the 
advance  of  the  German  army.  It  crossed  to  London. 
On  December  20,  1915,  the  poHce  of  Scotland  Yard 
raided  the  office  of  the  union,  and  seized  the  documents, 
including  a  list  of  persons  in  Russia  with  whom  the 
union  corresponded.  At  the  same  time  the  home  of 
Dimitri  Anitchkin,  secretary  of  the  union,  was  raided, 
and  his  manuscripts  and  letters  for  ten  years  back  were 
confiscated.  So  heavy  and  far-reaching  was  the  hand 
of  authority  that  when  the  union  appealed  to  the 
National  Sailors'  and  Firemen's  Union  of  England,  the 
general  secretary,  E.  Cathery,  wrote : 

You  must  not  forget  you  are  a  foreigner  in  a 
foreign  country,  although  you  belong  to  one  of  our 
allies ;  but  we  have  got  to  look  after  the  interest 
of  our  country  at  present,  and  do  not  want  any 
unpleasantness  at  the  present  time.  Under  the 
Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  we  can  be  called  before 
the  authorities  for  doing  things  we  can  do  with 
freedom  in  normal  times. 

A  little  group  of  English  people  saw  that  the  ancient 
right  of  asylum  was  about  to  be  abolished.    So  they 


238  ^        INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

made  their  appeal  to  the  British  trade-unions.  In 
"  The  Railway  Review,"  ''  The  Yorkshire  Factory 
Times,"  "  The  Amalgamated  Society  of  Engineers 
Journal,*'  and  "  The  Cotton  Factory  Times  "  they  saw 
to  it  that  articles  of  protest  appeared. 

But  the  police  were  determined  that  free  speech 
should  not  prevail.  A  labour  conference  was  to  be 
held  in  London  on  January  6,  1916,  and  a  leaflet  had 
been  prepared,  setting  out  the  facts  of  the  attack  on 
the  Russian  refugees,  and  called  an  "  Open  Letter  to 
Trade  Unionists."  Accordingly,  on  January  5,  the 
police  raided  the  headquarters  of  the  "  Russian 
Political  Prisoners'  and  Exiles'  Rehef  Committee,"  at  96, 
Lexham  Gardens,  Kensington,  London.  They  seized 
one  thousand  copies  of  a  financial  report,  containing 
the  seditious  information  that  the  Woolwich  trades 
council  had  given  six  pounds  to  the  Russian  committee, 
that  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen  of  Bletchley 
had  given  fourteen  shillings,  that  the  Independent 
Labour  party  of  Tantobie  had  contributed  eleven 
shillings  and  eightpence.  Exhilarated  by  their  success, 
the  police  proceeded  to  commandeer  the  reprints  in 
leaflet  form  of  the  articles  that  had  appeared  in  *'  The 
Railway  Review,"  "  The  Yorkshire  Factory  Times," 
and  "  The  Amalgamated  Society  of  Engineers'  Journal. 'S 
Nor  did  they  overlook^a  thousand  copies  of  the  "  Open 
Letter  to  Trade  Unionists,"  which  were  to  have  been 
distributed  on  the  next  day. 

The  Home  Secretary,  Mr.  Herbert  Samuel,  said  to 
the  House  of  Commons  on  July  11,  1916  : 

"  Russians  of  miHtary  age  settling  in  this  country 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  239 

will,  unless  they  prefer  to  return  for  military  service 
in  Russia,  be  required  to  enlist  in  the  British  army. 
The  details  of  the  scheme  are  now  being  worked  out." 

They  were.  The  police  set  to  work  illegally  and 
without  due  authority  and  said  to  the  Russian  refugees  : 

"  You  have  to  go  back  to  Russia.  Here  is  your 
ticket ;  you  are  to  be  at  Euston  Station  on  such  and 
such  a  day." 

Charles  Sarno  had  come  from  Russia  three  years 
previously.  An  order  was  served  upon  him  ;  he  was  to 
be  deported  to  Russia.  The  order  was  challenged.' 
When  it  came  to  argument  the  representatives  of  the 
Crown  abandoned  the  case.  Immediately  on  leaving 
the  court,  Sarno  was  again  arrested,  and  told  that  he 
was  to  be  put  on  board  a  ship  bound  for  Russia. 

It  was  announced  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  no 
invitation  or  request  whatever  had  come  from  the 
Russian  Government  for  England  to  take  this  action. 
It  was  a  purely  spontaneous  and  gratuitous  act  on  the 
part  of  the  British  Home  Office.  The  Home  Secretary 
stated  it  was  quite  false  that  he  had  ever  ordered  any 
man  to  go  to  Russia,  and  he  said  that  there  would 
be  no  deportations.  Finally,  Lord  Sheffield,  on  July 
27,  1916,  made  a  well-reasoned  speech  to  the  House 
of  Lords  in  which  he  defended  the  right  of  asylum, 
lashed  the  Government  and  the  police,  and  etched  the 
eminent  Jewisli  Home  Secretary,  Mr.  Herbert  Samuel, 
in  unforgetable  terms.    He  said  : 

'*  If  I  were  a  Jew  or  had  a  drop  of  Jewish  blood  in 
my  veins,  I  would  sooner  cut  my  hand  off  than  say  to 
one  of  these  men,  '  If  you  do  not  enhst  in  the  British 


240  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

army,  you,  being  a  Polish  Jew,  shall  go  back,  not  where 
you  like,  to  any  part  of  the  world,  but  to  Poland  or  to 
Russia/  '' 

Earl  Russell  stood  side  by  side  with  Lord  Sheffield 
in  defying  the  Government  policy,  and  once  again,  as 
on  more  occasions  than  one  in  British  history,  lords 
saved  the  liberty  of  individual  men  from  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Government  and  the  indifference  of  the 
Commons.  The  English  people  had  no  wish,  of 
course,  for  this  tyranny.  They  had  no  knowledge  of 
it.  Graham  Wallas  has  warned  us  against  the  modern 
conception  of  the  "  Psychology  of  the  Crowd."  He  has 
warned  us  against  seeing  populations  as  individually 
thoughtful  and  temperate  and  collectively  blind  and 
ferocious.  It  is  the  fallacy  of  our  generation  to  believe 
that  whole  peoples  go  insane  in  a  wild  swirl,  and  do 
this  thing  and  wish  that  thing  by  imitation  and  sugges- 
tion and  sympathy.  Of  course  political  movements 
are  in  fact  carried  out  "  by  men  conscious  and  thought- 
ful, though  necessarily  ill  informed,"  and  these  move- 
ments seem  to  the  slack  observer,  fed  on  our  popular 
sociologists,  ''to  be  due  to  the  blind  and  unconscious 
impulses  of  masses  '  incapable  both  of  reflection  and 
reasoning.' "  It  is  so  with  the  right  of  asylum  and  the 
suppression  of  the  Russians.  The  English  people 
have  not  gone  war-mad.  They  have  not  risen  up  to 
overthrow  the  principles  of  freedom  and  justice  for 
which  they  have  in  the  main  long  contended. 

But  under  cover  of  the  war,  when  the  attention 
of  millions  of  the  inhabitants  was  strained  on  another 
matter,  a  little  group  of  militarists,  politicians,  and 


SOCIAL  STUDIES  241 

policemen  have  tried  to  carry  out  a  reactionary  pro- 
gramme. It  is  familiar  to  all  students  of  the  institution 
of  police  that  it  is  the  tendency  of  their  practice  at 
times  of  strain  to  "  take  away  a  man's  character  by 
administrative  decree  on  secret  police  information." 
It  is  not  that  they  fail  to  act  honestly  on  the  best  of 
their  "  information  and  belief ;  "  it  is  that  the  secret 
and  one-sided  examination,  followed  by  peremptory 
action,  is  not  a  perfect  method  for  establishing  truth. 
'*  Spy,"  "  crook,"  "  anarchist,"  and  "  pervert  "  are 
words  for  them  that  do  duty  in  place  of  public  legal 
procedure. 

The  attempts  to  harass  Russian  refugees  were  for  a 
time  fewer  and  feebler  after  Lord  Sheffield  spoke. 
In  November  the  British  authorities  removed  four 
Russians  from  a  Danish  ship,,  but  their  case  was  tried 
in  open  court.  And  in  a  case  tried^  on  the  same  day, 
January  11  of  this  year,  concerning  a  French  pohtical 
refugee,  the  Lord  Chief- Justice  laid  down  the  British 
law  for  all  such  cases.     He  said  : 

'*  Parliament  had  not  given  the  Home  Secretary 
power  to  make  an  order  which  would  forcibly  remove  a 
man  from  this  country  to  another  country  to  which 
he  did  not  wish  t6~go." 

English  justice  refused  to  be  muzzled  by  conscription, 
munition  acts,  military  service  acts,  and  the  Defence 
of  the  Realm  Act.  So  ended  the  second  chapter  of 
this  record.  Chapter  one  showed  certain  English 
authorities  as  stupid  as  the  poHce  of  Chicago  and  New 
York  during  "  anarchist  "  flurries.  Chapter  two  re- 
vealed the  English  people  as  alert  in  the  defence  of 


242  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

freedom  as  in  the  days  before  the  war.    The  right  of 
asylum  had  been  reaffirmed. 

Then  came  chapter  three,  with  the  entrance  of  the 
new  British  Government.  The  new  Government 
represents  the  triumph  of  the  executive  over  the 
Parhamentary  legislative  division  of  authority.  Mr. 
Bonar  Law  announced  on  February  27  to  the  House  of 
Commons  that  Russians  in  England  must  enlist  as 
British  soldiers  or  be  deported  to  Russia.  On  the  same 
day  at  the  Old-Street  Police  Court  the  magistrate  said 
to  David  Cohen,  a  Russian  : 

We  do  not  want  you  here  if  you  are  not  going  to 
do  your  duty.  If  you  succeed  in  proving  that  you 
are  of  Russian  nationality  I  shall  do  my  best  to 
get  you  sent  back. 

On  March  7  I  attended  a  debate  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  where  Lord  Sheffield  pointed  out  that  the  home 
of  an  Englishwoman  had  been  raided  while  she  was 
held  in  prison  with  no  charge  made  against  her,  and 
in  her  absence  papers  were  confiscated.  These  papers 
were  pamphlets  in  defence  of  the  right  of  asylum. 
Lord  Sheffield  then  cited  the  case  of  a  Russian  refugee 
in  London  who  wished  to  return  to  the  United  States, 
where  he  had  taken  out  his  first  naturalization  papers. 
The  letter  of  the  Home  Office  was  produced  in  evidence, 
and  this  letter  refused  the  Russian's  request. 

The  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  the  Earl  of  Derby, 
replied  for  the  Government.  He  said  that  one  of  the 
seized  pamphlets,  entitled  "  The  Right  of  Asylum" 
was  of  such  a  character  as  to  make  it  unfit  for  circula- 
tion at  this  time.    Very  skilfully  he  created  an  "  atmos- 


SOCIAL  STUDIES  243 

phere  "  about  that  pamphlet,  so  that  the  Hstener  felt 
that  it  was  treasonable  and  seditious.  But  I  possess 
a  copy  of  that  pamphlet,  and  it  is  not  unfit  for  circula- 
tion in  a  free  country.  It  is  an  appeal  by  London 
Russians  not  to  be  sent  back. 

The  "noble  Earl''  went  on  to  refer  to  one  of  the 
societies  of  Russians  as  suspicious,  and  therefore  a 
fair  field  for  official  investigation.  He  forgot  that  he 
was  defending  an  official  policy  which  would  place 
those  suspicious  persons  in  the  army. 

The  Lord  Chancellor  spoke  next.  Lord  Finlay, 
the  present  Lord  Chancellor,  is  always  worth  hearing 
because  he  is  naive.  It  was  he  who  in  a  debate  on 
admitting  women  as  solicitors,  said : 

The  question  is :  What  is  the  proper  sphere  of 
women  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  the  active  practice 
of  a  profession  is  compatible  with  the  proper  work 
of  women  as  mothers  and  in  attending  to  their 
families.  I  regret  that  there  are  many  women  who 
do  not  have  an  opportunity  of  marriage  in  this 
country.  Probably  in  time  opportunities  will  be 
found  for  them  in  other  parts  of  the  Empire  where 
they  can  become  the  mothers  of  mighty  nations. 

In  the  present  debate  on  the  right  of  asylum,  he 
was  equally  delightful  when  he  said  that  the  Russian 
political  refugees  owed  a  duty  to  their  nation,  Russia, 
which  at  that  time  was  an  autocracy. 

Lord  Sheffield  was  snowed  under  by  these  vigorous 
reactionaries,  and  the  old  man  hobbled  away  on  two 
canes.  But  for  all  that,  he  had  made  it  clear  that  an 
ancient  right  was  being  removed  by  executive  decree, 
instead  of  by  constitutional  methods.    If  the  British 


244  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

people  wish  to  abolish  the  right  of  asylum,  they  should 
be  permitted  to  do  so  by  Act  of  Parliament. 

No  nation,  with  all  its  young  men  in  the  field,  will 
tolerate  the  presence  of  non-combatant  aliens,  filling 
the  jobs  vacated  by  the  citizen  army.  The  Mayor 
of  Bethnal  Green  said  recently. 

Men  have  to  sacrifice  their  little  businesses  or 
their  small  factories  to  serve  at  the  front,  and 
neighbours  of  foreign  parentage  step  into  their 
places  and  reap  the  reward. 

Two  other  mayors  of  East  London,  representatives 
of  the  borough  councils,  local  tribunals,  and  of  the 
London  County  Council,  supported  his  statement 
and  passed  a  resolution  calling  on  Parliament  to 
remedy  the  evil.  The  alien  must  be  willing  to  defend 
the  nation  in  which  he  makes  his  residence  or  else 
leave  for  some  other  land  not  under  war-pressure. 
But  he  should  receive  the  right  to  select  his  destination. 
To  force  him  to  return  to  a  country  which  would 
imprison  him,  is  as  unjust  as  it  is  for  him  to  claim 
protection  in  a  country  which  he  is  unwilling  to 
defend.  With  the  establishment  of  a  democratic 
Russia,  the  alien  is  asked  to  make  his  choice  between 
serving  in  the  British  Army  or  returning  for  service 
in  Russia. 

Public   Opinion 

England  would  perhaps  have  been  one  more  quiet, 
comfortable  power  of  the  second  rank  but  for  its 
northern  and  western  counties.  Its  recent  history 
would  have  been  the  history  of  Holland  if  it  had  not 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  245 

been  for  the  storehouse  of  coal  and  iron  in  the  industrial 
provinces.  It  was  out  of  them,  and  out  of  the  people  bred 
there,  that  she  has  derived  her  vast  strength  in  meeting 
the  new  world  created  by  the-  industrial  revolution 
that  came  in  one  century  and  a  half  ago  on  the  invention 
of  machinery  and  in  meeting  the  unexampled  fiery 
test  of  the  present  war.  Those  northern  and  western 
parts  of  Great  Britain  have  won  the  fight  of  democracy, 
and  established  the  principle  of  democratic  control. 
What  we  used  to  mean  by  England  was  southern 
England.  It  was  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  London. 
The  genius  and  the  vitality  of  the  kingdom  were 
gathered  there,  and  the  radiations  went  out  from  those 
centres  to  make  the  impress  of  what  the  world  knew  as 
English  influence. 

Life  is  no  longer  a  monopoly  possession  of  the 
upper  classes,  of  the  male  sex,  of  the  mother  country, 
of  the  Westminster  Parliament,  of  the  captains  of 
industry.  Life  is  not  a  matter  to  be  postponed  to  the 
hereafter  and  the  choir  invisible.  It  is  the  product 
here  and  now  of  one's  will  and  energy,  fed  by  impulse, 
and  shaped  by  thought.  One's  self  is  the  person  con- 
cerned, and  the  happiest  society  in  which  to  feel  at 
home  is  a  democracy  of  equals. 

Imperceptibly  the  change  has  come.  The  governing 
class  has  ceased  to  govern.  The  type  of  Enghshman 
who  was  born  to  rule  is  left  without  a  job.  Power 
and  virtue  have  departed  from  the  old  order.  Patri- 
archal England,  reared  in  the  humanities,  impervious 
to  modern  ideas,  indifferent  to  alien  points  of  view, 
unconsciously  arrogant,  kindly,  cultivated,  and  honour- 


246  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

able,  was  unfitted  to  the  modern  world  of  quick 
thinking — swift  action,  sympathetic  co-operation.  It 
is  dying  in  our  sight.  In  the  first  weeks  of  war  the 
shell  of  that  little  England  collapsed ;  the  organism 
itself  had  long  since  weakened.  In  its  place  has 
arisen  a  far  more  formidable,  far  more  democratic 
state,  the  British  commonwealth. 

As  fast  as  power  shifts  a  psychological  change 
takes  place.  The  English  nature  and  character  are 
visibly  altering.  A  swifter  order  of  men  are  in  control. 
The  men  of  power  show  Celtic  characteristics.  Under 
the  touch  of  the  new  influence,  which  is  industrial 
and  democratic,,  there  is  a  brightening  and  quickening. 
The  old  inarticulateness  passes.  The  race  grows 
talkative.    It  responds  to  excitement. 

Public  opinion,  as  it  reverberates  in  London,  is 
no  longer  the  public  opinion  of  Great  Britain.  It  is 
not  the  public  opinion  of  the  Cornwall  miners,  of  the 
South  Wales  miners,  of  the  industrial  centres  of  Liver- 
pool, Birmingham,  Manchester,  and  Glasgow.  It  is 
not  the  public  opinion  of  Montreal,  and  Sydney. 
London  and  the  south  of  England  do  not  speak  for  the 
commonwealth.  *'  The  Manchester  Guardian  '*  under- 
stands the  sentiment  of  Glasgow  and  Montreal,  but  the 
London  "  Morning  Post  "  does  not. 

When  Lloyd  George  struck  out  his  suggestion  for 
Ireland,  he  spoke  the  requiem  of  the  England  known 
to  us  in  memoirs,  novels,  and  letters  ;  the  England 
of  our  college  literary  course,  of  the  historic  tradition, 
the  caste  system,  the  landed  gentry,  the  noble  lady, 
the  faithful  servitor,  the  hackney  coachman,  the  genial 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  247 

vicar,  and  the  Oxford  don.  He  proposed  that  the 
matter  of  Ireland  be  handed  over  to  the  imperial 
conference,  the  congress  of  -  the  five  democracies. 
England^s  time  had  gone.  She  couldn't  solve  the 
ancient  wrong,  but  the  new  commonwealth  could 
solve  it.  Take  it  away  from  the  tired  kingdom,  and 
give  it  to  the  young  democracy.  Government  is  no 
longer  an  affair  of  historic  tradition.  It  is  a  very 
troublesome  matter  of  digging  out  the  facts,  and 
applying  them  to  brand-new  and  rapidly  changing 
conditions.  It  requires  qualities  of  swift  decision 
and  execution.  Industrial  working-class  England 
takes  over  the  Government,  assumes  control  of  life, 
and  side  by  side  with  radical  Scotland  and  Wales 
and  Australia  and  Canada  creates  the  new  state. 
With  the  passing  of  Little  England,  the  "  literary  " 
Englishman  whom  we  have  known  passes,  the  courtly 
and  simple  nobleman,  the  charming  litterateur,  the 
*'  scholar  and  gentleman,"  and  there  comes  in  his  stead 
a  democratic  person,  open  to  ideas,  willing  to  learn, 
and  very  willing  to  work  out  in  partnership  the  problems 
of  democratic  control. 

I  am  trying  to  untangle  what  seems  to  me  the 
silent  and  real  opinion  of  the  naf ion  from  the  voices 
that  fill  the  air.  Any  one  would  be  singularly  inept 
who  pretended  to  interpret  with  any  finality  the  public 
opinion  of  a  people.  What  I  give  is  merely  the  product 
of  contacts  with  a  few  thousand  British.  The  ex- 
perience is  all  necessarily  incomplete  and  superficial. 
This  is  offered  merely  as  what  I  have  seen  and  heard. 
It  is  a  collection  of  little  fragments  of  pubhc  opinion. 


248  INSIDfi  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  stuff  talked  in  certain  London  centres  is  mis- 
leading and  mischievous  and  sometimes  wilfully 
malicious.  It  is  the  bitter  cry  of  persons  who  have 
lost  their  influence.  There  are  little  groups  of  elderly 
men  and  women  in  London  who  inflame  themselves 
with  hate  of -the  German  people.  They  speak  of  them 
as  a  nation  of  beasts,  outside  the  human  race.  This 
is  very  unrepresentative  of  English  public  opinion, 
which  has  made  the  clear  distinction  in  its  mind  between 
the  doped,  duped  German  people  and  the  band  of 
predatory  assassins  who  are  in  control  of  them. 

Again,  on  Ireland,  I  can  quote  an  EngHsh  officer, 
whom  I  heard  say  on  his  return  from  Dublin  : 

*'  Remove  the  Nationalist  politicians  from  West- 
minster. Suppress  the  Irish  newspapers.  Then  give 
them  conscription.    They  will  yield." 

He  and  "  The  Morning  Post  "  represent  that  minute 
fraction  of  "  die  hards  "  who  feel  the  tide  floating  them 
down  the  beach  and  try  to  dig  their  heels  into  the  sand. 
The  will  of  the  British  people  is  for  a  settlement  of  the 
Irish  question.  There  is  no  hatred  of  Ireland  among 
the  masses  of  the  community.  The  desire  of  the 
average  E;nghshman  is  to  be  let  alone  and  to  let  other 
people  alone. 

One  does  not  need  to  be  a  prophet  to  know  that 
perhaps  the  most  famous  question  in  the  world  for  the 
next  two  years  will  be  that  of  Ireland.  The  best  of 
the  British  are  resolutely  determined  on  a  thorough- 
going answer.  Such  men  as  Dr.  Fisher,  the  Minister 
of  Education,  William  Temple,  president  of  the 
Workers'  Educational  Association,  Lord    Northcliffe, 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  249 

the  Round  Table  group,  Gilbert  Chesterton,  Massing- 
ham,  Lansbury,  Asquith,  Lloyd  George,  desire  a  just 
and  far-reaching  solution,  and  mean  to  have  it.  The 
grouping  of  those  names,  representing  implacable 
hostilities  of  belief  on  every  other  subject  under  the 
sun,  proves  that  a  mobilization  of  forces  has  taken 
place  in  behalf  of  Ireland. 

It  is  always  necessary  to  find  out  whether  a  state- 
ment of  opinion  represents  the  mass  consciousness  or 
whether  it  is  spoken  from  personal  bitterness  and  class 
interest.  I  can  quote  Leo  Maxse,  who  writes  in  his 
"  National  Review,"  "  There  is  nothing  in  common 
between  the  standpoint  of  the  civilized  part  of  Europe 
and  the  United  States."  But  I  am  quoting  a  shrill 
and  lonely  voice.  The  mass  of  people  in  England 
are  as  unaware  of  America  as  the  middle  West  is 
unaware  of  England.  They  are  not  scornful  or 
antagonistic.  They  are  indifferent  with  the  large 
indifference  of  ignorance.  In  the  part  of  the  English 
community  who  are  aware  of  the  United  States  as  the 
"  big  show,"  to  quote  a  Broad  Street  cotton  broker, 
there  is  little  resentment  and  much  good-will.  The 
"  Tommy,"  the  farmer,  the  shopkeeper,  when  he 
meets  the  individual  American,  has  the  tolerance  of 
his  kind  for  all  alien  folk  that  come  from  some  other 
county  than  his  own.  They  all  seem  a  little  strange 
to  him,  but  they  are  "all  right."  He  includes  the 
American  with  the  AustraHan  and  the  Welshman. 

Public  opinion,  then,  is  not  really  concerned  at  all 
with  exterminating  German  clerks,  oppressing  Irish 
peasants,  annoying  American  business  men.    It  is 


250  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

not  "  out "  to  govern  the  world  or  rule  "  backward 
races." 

What  are  its  concerns  ? 

Its  main  concern  at  the  moment  is  to  go  through  with 
a  bad  job  to  the  end,  to  win  a  victory  in  order  to  have  a 
lasting  peace.  Englishmen  hate  war,  and  they  were 
first  astonished,  then  irritated,  and  finally  angry 
that  any  nation  should  let  loose  a  hideous  slaughter 
into  a  fairly  peaceable  world.  They  were  slow  to 
believe  German  methods  of  fright  fulness.  In  the 
early  months  I  could  get  a  hearing,  but  little  credence, 
for  the  atrocities  I  had  witnessed.  A  good-natured 
scepticism  was  the  response.  But  once  thoroughly 
in  a  nasty  business,  they  are  now  determined  to  see  it 
through.  They  will  hang  on.  It  is  hard  for  them  to 
pry  loose  when  they  have  taken  hold.  When  their 
clutch  has  automatically  clicked  and  got  set,  there 
seems  to  be  no  device  in  the  machinery  for  setting 
itself  free.  And  that  offers  the  chance  for  the  imperial- 
ists, with  their  "  spheres  of  influence  '*  and  territorial 
claims,  to  turn  what  was  idealistic  in  the  early  purposes 
of  the  young  men  to  their  own  advantage.  '*  Why 
shouldn't  England  take  a  bit  in  return  for  the 
sacrifice  ? ' '  One  hears  this  idea  occasionally  expressed. 
This  is  not  the  will  of  England.  The  vast  majority 
went  into  the  war  in  a  spirit  of  devotion,  and  they 
wish  to  come  out  of  it  as  clean-handed  and  clean- 
minded  as  they  entered.  Which  spirit  and  policy 
will  prevail  ?  The  more  thoughtful  of  the  English 
are  both  worried  and  hopeful. 

There  is  a  powerful  peace  movement,  not  representing 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  251 

anything  approaching  a  majority.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
small  fraction  of  the  community  ;  but  I  call  it  powerful 
because  it  worries  the  authorities,  and  because  it  is 
growing,  though  very  slowly.  The  impression  which 
Mr.  Trevelyan  has  given  to  America  of  a  widespread 
desire  for  an  immediate  peace — a  desire  muzzled  from 
expression  by  the  authorities — ^is  false ;  but  there  is 
an  increasing  receptivity  to  the  idea  of  peace.  I  saw 
a  woman,  Mrs.  Walker,  arrested  in  Hyde  Park  for 
advocating  "a  peace  by  honourable  negotiations'' 
(her  own  words).    The  audience  was  not  hostile. 

The  next  concern  of  public  opinion  is  with  the 
internal  situation.  The  mind  of  the  man  belonging 
to  the  upper  possessing  class  has  become  accustomed 
to  change.  For  a  generation  he  has  felt  the  foundation 
growing  unsteady.  The  institutions  which  seemed  to 
him  immutable  are  visibly  modifying — ^the  institutions 
of  property,  church,  and  marriage.  He  is  not  in  favour 
of  the  ever-spreading  change,  but  he  has  mentally 
accepted  the  fact  that  change  is  taking  place.  The 
old  authority  has  passed  to  other  hands,  and  he  is 
bewildered  by  the  juggle  which  has  transformed  upper- 
class  rule  into  democratic  control.  Nothing  in  itself 
now  surprises  him,  because  the  whole  process  is  amaz- 
ing. Without  a  protest  he  has  seen  state  socialism 
installed  at  Westminster  and  feminism  at  the  War 
Office.  Patiently  he  awaits  what  will  happen  next 
and  what  will  come  of  it  all.  What  has  been  under- 
mined is  "  a  certain  organic  conception  of  society — 
the  conception  of  the  hierarchy  of  authorities  which 
dominated  the  Middle  Ages.    The  old  order  has  been 


252  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

destroyed  by  the  new  ideals  of  justice  and  liberty,  be- 
ginning with  religion,  passing  on  to  politics,'*  modifying 
industry,  "  and  reaching  at  last  the  private  relations  of 
marriage  and  the  family."  These  new  ideals  have 
penetrated  the  thought  of  the  community,  and  have 
gradually  sought  fulfilment  in  the  lagging,  painful 
processes  of  legislation.  The  older  type  of  politician 
was  unable  to  framxe  such  revolutionary  concepts  into 
acts,  so  what  has  happened  is  the  creation  of  a  new 
order  of  civil  servants.  ''  What  is  growing,  rapidly, 
and  yet  almost  unobserved  by  the  pubHc,  is  expert 
legislation  by  permanent  officials.'* 

It  is  small  wonder  that  the  elderly,  kindly  gentle- 
man whom  we  have  taken  as  representative  of  his 
class  is  dazed  by  the  shifting  world  of  flux  where  once 
he  stood  firmly.  He  is  on  a  moving-sidewalk,  and  he 
is  quite  sure  he  is  under  way,  though  he  himself  is  not 
walking.  But  not  only  is  that  gentle  conservative 
puzzled  by  the  advance  ,*  the  general  public  have  not 
intellectually  realized  the  change  which  their  own 
impulse  toward  freedom  has  created.  Public  opinion 
to-day  is  constantly  in  the  attitude  of  a  man  who  has 
his  desires  answered  before  he  has  stated  them.  The 
democratic  state  is  moving  faster  than  the  individual 
citizen,  and  he  is  mentally  confused.  The  moving  finger 
writes,  and  public  opinion  will  have  to  find  its  place  in 
the  appendix  to  the  Book  of  Acts,  recording  the  estab- 
lishment of  democratic  control  during  the  Great  War. 

Where  the  Lane  Turns 
A  letter  has  come  to  me  from  a  friend.    He  is  a 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  253 

charming  writer,  fellow  of  a  Cambridge  college.  He 
objects  to  my  summary  dismissal  of  the  older  England 
as  recorded  in  the  preceding  chapter.    He  says  : 

"  If  ever  there  was  a  typical  Oxford  man,  with  an 
Oxford  cast  of  thought  in  the  direct  Oxford  tradition, 
it  is  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,  the  new  minister  of  education. 
The  new  ministry  of  labour,  being  forced  to  get  a 
permanent  head  capable  of  dealing  with  the  problems 
they  are  up  against,  does  not  get  a  trade  imion  leader, 
but  an  Eton-Balliol  scholar  and  fellow  of  All  Souls. 
I  am  afraid,  as  a  narrow-minded  pedant,  I  am  convinced 
that  brains  are  what  always  tell  in  the  long  rtm,  and 
I  don't  think  commerce  or  "  life  '*  or  the  newer 
universities  are  yet  the  equal  of  the  old  imiversities 
in  producing  and  training  brain.  Moreover,  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  are  not  '  south  of  England,'  as  you 
suggest.  Their  geographical  position  has  nothing  to 
do  with  their  nature.  They  are  the  oldest  and  most 
independent  republics  in  England  and  totally  ex- 
territorial, like  the  city  of  Washington." 

Of  course  he  is  exactly  right,  and  I  believe  we  are 
both  right.  Now  is  the  meeting  of  the  old  and  new, 
and  even  a  profound  modification  of  structure  will 
include  vestigial  traces. ^  Every  summary  statement 
concerning  so  complex  a  thing  as  the  modern  com- 
munity must  wait  for  verification  on  psychological 
records  which  have  not  yet  been  made.  "  Crowd 
psychology  "  is  still  in  the  hands  of  hasty  generalizers 
and  pseudo-scientists,  who  write  sweepingly  of  the 
"  herd  instinct."  So  it  is  with  this  book.  It  is  a 
»  See  Appendix,  "  The  White  Knight." 


254  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

personal  impression,  and  it  paints  in  broad  colours. 
A.  E.  Zimmern,  of  the  reconstruction  committee,  H.  N. 
Spalding,  of  the  welfare  department  of  the  ministry  of 
munitions,  and  Dr.  Fisher,  the  minister  of  education, 
have  all  cautioned  me  against  over-emphasizing  the 
speed  of  change  in  so  stable  a  community  as  the  British 
nation  and  against  making  too  logical  and  intellectual- 
istic  an  analysis  of  British  character.  The  Briton  is  a 
sociable,  humoursome  fellow  who  moves  slowly  and  is 
not  logical  in  his  ways,  but  proceeds  along  the  lines 
of  his  own  individuahstic  psychology  in  contact  with 
his  own  peculiar  and  ancient  environment. 

But  a  reconstruction  is  under  way.  A  peaceable, 
slow-moving  race  has  been  swept  by  the  winds  of 
doctrine  and  the  forces  of  change.  Great  questions 
are  suddenly  opened  that  were  regarded  as  settled 
or  non-existent,  or  buried  in  the  silence  of  respectability. 
Let  me  show  the  method  of  that  change  in  the  concrete 
instance  of  education.  Two  systems  of  education 
exist  to-day  in  England  side  by  side.  There  is  the 
long-established  system  of  private  education  for  the 
upper  class  by  the  great  schools  of  Eton,  Harrow, 
Rugby,  Westminster,  and  the  universities  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge.  There  is  public  education  by  local 
boards  and  new  universities.  The  two  systems  are 
unrelated,  and  so,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  national 
system  of  education,  they  are  anomalous. 

But  because  there  is  this  anomaly,  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  reconstruction  will  "  hack  its  way  through." 
The  process  will  be  a  filtration,  and  not  a  surgical 
operation.    Slowly    the    great    universities    will    be 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  255 

modernized,  and  steadily  the  new  institutions  will 
be  urged  to  aim  at  the  level  of  culture  which  the 
humanities  gave.  A  "  bread-and-butter"  education 
alone  will  never  be  the  one  aim  of  English  instruction. 
The  arts  alone  will  never  again  be  in  sole  command  of 
the  field.  But  a  new  programme  will  be  wrought  out 
of  both  sets  of  values. ^ 

From  a  certain  public  school  twenty-seven  out  df 
twenty-eight  scholarships  to  the  university  were  taken 
in  the  humanities.  It  is  improbable  that  twenty- 
seven  out  of  twenty-eight  represents  the  actual  pro- 
portion in  aptitude  of  that  group  for  a  literary  culture 
as  contrasted  with  a  scientific  culture.  The  probable 
proportion  would  be  more  like  fourteen  for  the  humani- 
ties, and  fourteen  for  the  science.  To  redress  that 
balance  will  be  the  task  of  the  coming  reconstruction, 
and  it  will  be  achieved  without  upsetting  the  English 
temperament  and  tradition. 

One  elementary  school  differs  from  another  as 
widely  as  an  elementary  school  differs  from  Harrow. 
To  level  up  elementary  schools  to  standard  without 
invading  local  autonomy  is  another  difficult  task  of  the 
reconstruction.  A  few  years  ago  education  was 
decentralized,  and  the  local  boards,  by  refusing  govern- 
ment grants,  can  separate  their  local  institution  from 
the  national  system.  Not  by  offending  these  local 
boards  can  the  betterment  come.  The  Government 
by  its  financial  grants  and  by  wise  suggestion,  can, 

» Compare  "  National  Education,"  by  Lord  Haldane  ("  After- 
War  Problems  "),  and  the  educational  programme  of  the  Workers* 
Educational  Association. 


256  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

however,  influence  the  local  boards  to  modern  methods. 
Little  by  little  modern  educators  will  sit  on  those 
boards,  and  two  men  of  forward-looking  mind  can 
swing  a  session  of  ''stand-patters/'  It  may  be,  at 
some  point  in  the  future,  that  full  control  of  educa- 
tion will  pass  back  to  a  central  authority,  and  that 
what  is  now  advisory  will  become  mandatory.  But 
the  public  are  far  from  ready  to  accept  such  a 
change,  and  the  local  boards  will  continue  to  be  the 
machinery  through  which  the  minister  of  education 
will  operate. 

The  period  of  adolescence  of  the  working-class 
population  will  be  gradually  dealt  with.  Between 
fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age  there  is  a  vast  waste 
of  vocational  and  cultural  potentiality  in  the  child. 
That  waste  is  clearly  recognized.  The  youngster  as 
yet  goes  out  from  board  school  into  blind-alley  jobs, 
which  leave  him  unskilled  and  ignorant  as  an  adult. 
Continuation  schools,  a  system  of  part-time  work  and 
part-time  instruction,  a  raising  of  the  school  age,  more 
pay,  and  better  teachers — ^these  and  a  dozen  other 
details  will  all  be  handled  by  the  method  I  have 
outlined,  which  is  never  slashing  and  drastic  reform 
by  an  autocratic  state.  It  is  largely  the  extension  of 
an  ancient  practice  to  a  wider  group.  It  is  partly 
the  response  of  a  flexible  system  to  new  knowledge. 
It  is  a  gradual  method,  ''  brick  on  brick,"  as  is  the 
EngHsh  way.  But  when  the  builders  have  completed 
their  task,  the  structure  will  be  new  in  the  eyes  of  the 
community,  and  the  institution  housed  there  will  be 
as  little  hke  the  "  Eton-Balliol "  institution  as  King 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  257 

George  V's  commonwealth  is  like  King  George  IV's 
England. 

The  old  system  of  education  produced  a  governing 
class,  a  group  of  men  of  integrity  and  trained  intelli- 
gence. They  legislated,  colonized,  hunted,  and 
followed  the  life  of  culture  with  distinction,  and  they 
continued  to  make  England  the  greatest  of  the  nations. 
As  long  as  the  old  formulae  and  the  old  ethics  were 
sufficient,  the  inheritors  of  that  tradition  were  the 
inevitable  masters  of  government.  But  suddenly 
the  two  aspects  of  government  made  an  astonishing 
turn.  Control  of  the  environment  entered  on  a  new 
development  with  the  coming  of  steam-power  and 
machinery.  The  peasant  and  yeoman  community 
passed  out  of  existence.  The  land  went  back  to  grass. 
Industrial  cities  and  massed  populations  came  in. 
And  that  new  control  of  the  environment  altered  the 
other  aspect  of  government — the  relationship  of  man 
to  man.  Industrial  organization  created  new  ahgn- 
.  ments  of  party,  interest,  and  class.  The  governing 
class  began  to  flutter  in  a  world  not  reaHzed,  like  the 
thin- voiced  shades  about  Ulysses.  But  the  mass  of 
the  people,  to  whom  the  power  passed,  have  not  yet 
found  their  leaders. 

Two  civilizations  are  co-existent  here.  One  is  a 
very  ancient  and  noble  civiHzation.  The  other  is  new 
and  chaotic,  caught  in  the  process  of  becoming.  The 
ancient  civilization  was  sure  of  itself,  possessing  a 
I  tradition  and  code  of  action.  The  new  is  too  busy 
I  to  develop  a  technique  of  life  or  manner.  It  doesn't 
know  where  it  is  going,  but  it  is  in  motion.    The 

R 


258  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

effect  is  that  ■  of  electric  lighting  in  Warwick  Castle 
or  a  trolly-car  to  Stonehenge.  Everywhere  in  Great 
Britain  one  feels  the  modern  thrusting  through  the 
rich  soil  and  surface  cake  of  what  is  older  than  the  life 
of  man.  In  the  little  Hampshire  village  of  Emsworth 
bright,  new  jerry-built  bungalows  rise  close  to  the 
huddle  of  centuries-old  fishermen's  cottages,  and  motor- 
cars flash  past  thatched  roofs  under  the  great  spire  of 
Chichester  and  come  to  rest  in  a  renovated  moss-grown 
inn.  Peasants  touch  their  hats  as  you  pass  and  call  you 
''  sir/'  and  the  girl  conductor  of  the  omnibus  is  some- 
times as  curt  and  scornful  as  a  Chicago  expressman. 
In  the  Devon  hamlet  of  Lewdown  the  farm  women  with 
whom  we  lived  continue  to  make  clotted  cream  as 
their  likes  made  it  when  John  Ridd  climbed  to  his 
courting,  but  eagerly  borrow  my  London  paper  every 
evening  after  the  chores  are  done.  The  Church  is 
still  firmly  established,  while  the  congregation  waits 
for  the  afternoon  service,  and  the  afternoon  service 
is  held  in  the  cinema  house.  The  King  is  a  very  gallant 
and  modest  gentleman,  who  does  not  possess  the  power 
of  Arthur  Henderson  nor  the  influence  of  H.  W. 
Massingham.  Still  stands  the  House  of  Lords,  but 
the  lords  of  power  are  Devonport,  Rhondda,  and 
Northcliffe,  business  lords.  The  telephone  and  tram- 
car  stretch  their  wires  through  lanes  where  the  Cavaliers 
rode,  and  there  is  an  excellent  telegraph  service  in 
the  village  in  which  Baring  Gould  is  writing  the  legends 
of  his  countryside. 

The  new-comers  are  not  taking  the  kingdom  by 
violence.    They  do  not  tear  down  the  old.    No,  they 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  259 

take  the  heart  out  of  it,  and  let  it  wither  like  a  plant 
stung  by  the  frost.  The  wreckers  will  never  march 
through  England  armed  with  condemnation  writs  and 
blasting-powder.  But  gradually  the  light  railways 
spread  their  threads,  while  "  The  Daily  Mail "  scatters 
its  modernism  to  millions.  It  is  possible  by  careful 
selection  to  convince  one's  self  that  the  former  things 
have  not  passed  away.  It  is  true  that  they  linger,  but 
new  forces  are  in  command,  and  England  of  the  poets 
is  an  old-age  pensioner  in  the  house  of  her  daughters 
of  the  British  commonwealth.  They  make  war  in 
vain  who  fight  against  these  things.  Raw  energy  is 
in  the  saddle,  and  the  galled  jade  must  gallop  to  new 
spurs. 

The  New  Way 

Liberalism  has  ceased  to  be  a  political  theory  and 
has  become  a  programme  of  reconstruction,  planning 
reform  by  intensive  intellectual  effort.    After  many 
ups  and  downs,  following  the  reform  of  1832,  a  period 
of    deadness    set    in,    and    gradually    middle-class 
liberalism,  barren  of  ideas,  assumed  control.    It  did 
not  come  to  grips  with  its  world,  because  it  did  not 
have  the  proper  method.    But  in  recent  years  the  way 
to   study   human   society   has   been   discovered.    A 
group  of  university  men  began  to  put  their  thought 
on  the  organization   of  human  life.    The   working- 
class  party  sprang  up.    There  has  never  existed  so 
wide  a   division  between  the  intellectuals  and  the 
workers   in   England   as   in   America.    The   English 
workers   have   never   swallowed   whole  the  Marxian 


26o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

analysis.  They  have  preferred  step  by  step  reform  to 
the  spreading  of  a  theory. 

As  the  result  of  much  patient  piecemeal  work, 
based  on  "  the  accumulation  and  analysis  of  economic 
knowledge/'  a  whole  new  body  of  legislation  was 
incorporated  into  EngHsh  life,  beginning  with  the  year 
1906.  That  process  continues.  The  principles  of 
this  reconstruction  are  derived  from  the  conception 
that  a  community  must  work  hard  with  its  mind  in 
order  to  organize  a  good  society.  Untrammelled  by 
dogma,  the  practical  English  intelligence,  both  of  the 
working-class  brain  and  of  the  intellectuals,  has  set 
about  reshaping  its  institutions  of  property  and  state. 
The  Fabian  Society  and  "The  Round  Table *'  group, 
the  colleges,  organized  groups  of  women,  all  have  aided 
in  the  work  of  collecting  facts  and  sharpening  the 
analysis.  There  have  been  brilliant  scouts  like  Wells 
and  Shaw.  But  back  of  them,  and  providing  them 
with  the  equipment  for  their  sorties,  are  the  hard 
workers  with  a  genius  for  taking  pains,  like  the  Webbs 
and  Seebohm  Rowntree.  "  The  development  of  more 
delicate  logical  methods  and  the  accumulation  of 
recorded  observations  are  now  making  deliberate 
thought  about  mankind  less  inexact  and  misleading 
than  at  any  other  point  in  history." 

Lately,  many  persons  have  been  thinking  with  the 
lash  on  them.  How  to  stop  the  Zeppelins,  make 
shells,  and  overcome  the  damage  of  war — ^these 
questions  are  being  dealt  with  at  high  speed.  The 
community  is  becoming  aware  of  itself ;  it  is  devising 
an  imperial  economy,^  which  correlates  industry  to 
>  See  Appendix,  "  Trusts  "  and  "  Tariff  Reform." 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  a6i 

national  needs  and  includes  the  family  budget  in  its 
process  of  thought.  The  easy  generaHzations  of 
political  exiles  and  closet-philosophers  have  been 
displaced  by  fact-investigations  and  analysis  from  the 
records.  Laissez-faire,  the  economic  man,  economic 
determinism,  and  the  other  substitutes  for  hard  work, 
no  longer  content  the  community  which  wishes  to 
find  itself.  Patiently  and  gropingly,  a  synthesis  for 
the  new  society  is  being  formed. 

Almost  unobserved,  a  literature  is  forming  around 
the  social  movement.  It  is  a  literature  where  the 
pressure  of  thought  has  been  so  intense  and  controlled 
that  it  has  wrought  for  itself  a  special  style.  I  feel 
sure  that  if  Professor  Saintsbury  were  to  extend  his 
anthology  of  "  English  Prose  Rhythms,"  he  would 
include  paragraphs  from  Bertrand  Russell,  A.  E., 
Edward  Carpenter,  Lowes  Dickinson,  Havelock  Ellis, 
and  Graham  Wallas.  They  carry  a  tone  and  accent, 
giving  pleasure  to  the  inward  ear.  These  men  write 
a  clear  and  precise  English,  which  travels  easily 
and  without  fatigue,  and  often  rises  to  beauty  on  its 
own  momentum  of  thought.  They  seem  to  have 
lifted  the  technique  of  style  to  a  new  level ;  perhaps  no 
higher  than  that  of  several  earlier  periods,  but  different. 
They  have  introduced  a  fresh  cadence  into  the  prose 
music  of  the  last  four  centuries.  There  is  an  absence 
of  premeditated  eloquence,  of  overstatement,  of  the 
wind  of  words.  There  has  come  a  reaUzation  that  the 
limit  of  language  in  one  direction  had  been  reached 
with  *'  multitudinous  seas  "  and  *'  purple  riot,"  and 
that  the  prose  writers  who  pushed  along  the  track  of 


262  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  poets  reached  a  point  of  strain  in  De  Quincey  and 
Landor  beyond  which  laughter  lurked.  The  inevitable 
reaction  gave  us  the  clear,  cold  dreariness  of  Herbert 
Spencer  and  the  suppression  and  aridity  of  Arnold. 

But  these  modern  prose  writers,  interpreting  the 
new  social  order,  have  taken  a  fresh  trail.  And  I  do 
not  doubt  they  have  abolished  the  purple  patch  as 
effectually  as  they  have  avoided  the  anaemia  of  thwarted 
impulse.  Their  meaning  is  more  exactly  expressed 
than  in  the  pages  of  men  who  used  loosely  and  cheaply 
"  God,"  "  nature, '*  "  happiness,"  and  *'  society."  But 
the  pains  of  a  scientific  precision  have  not  silenced 
the  music.  There  is  none  of  the  jumbled  terminology 
of  our  troubled  "  sociologists "  and  psychologists. 
These  men  have  lifted  their  scholarship  into  simplicity. 
It  is  perhaps  only  an  interesting  chance  that  two  of 
them  are  mathematicians,  but  it  is  profoundly  signifi- 
cant that  all  of  them  are  students  of  human  society, 
not  in  the  old  literary  way  of  projecting  Utopias,  but 
through  the  process  of  hard  thinking  on  the  facts  of 
life. 

"  In  the  end  it  is  the  psychological  question  of 
fact  which  will  have  to  settle  the  ethical  question  of 
conduct." 

It  is  no  longer  enough  for  us  that  a  passage  in  a  book 
shall  be  "well  written,"  as  the  famous  and  unin- 
telligent pages  of  Lecky  on  prostitution.  Writing  that 
concerns  itself  with  society,  if  it  is  to  win  a  response 
from  us,  must  be  grounded  on  observation  of  the  facts 
It  must  bring  a  scientific  method  to  bear  on  "  the  vast 
and    constantly   growing   accumulation   of   recorded 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  263 

observations.''  Surely  in  these  choice  writers  of  the 
reconstruction  we  have  that  quahty  which  the  demo- 
cracy, if  it  is  wise,  will  cherish.  We  have  that  natural 
aristocracy,  that  sovereignty  of  the  best,  which  alone 
is  able  to  set  a  standard  for  the  mass-people. 

The  New  Americanism 

Around  20,000,000  happy  firesides  the  fathers  of 
America  will  gather  this  night  with  their  unbroken 
family  circle,  with  their  children  upon  their  knees  and 
their  wives  by  their  side,  happy  and  prosperous.  Con- 
trast this  with  the  fathers,  husbands  and  brothers  of 
the  Old  World,  dying  in  the  ditches.  .  .  .  Who  is  it 
that  would  have  our  President  exchange  with  the 
blood-bespattered  monarchs  of  the  Old  World  ?  .  .  . 
He  is  the  world  teacher,  his  class  is  made  up  of  kings, 
kaisers,  czars,  princes,  and  potentates. — Senator  Ollie 
James,  Permanent  Chairman  of  the  Democratic  National 
Convention. 

The  superb  assurance  of  Captain  Hans  Rose, 
coupled  with  his  inimitable  ability,  shown  when  he 
brought  the  C/-53  into  Newport,  Rhode  Island^  paid 
and  received  visits  of  courtesy,  handed  to  an  American 
newspaper  man  a  letter  for  Ambassador  von  Bernstorff , 
dived  and  was  away  on  a  mission  of  destruction  within 
three  hours,  carries  with  it  a  wholesome  savour  of 
knightly  conduct  that  goes  home  to  the  moral  centre 
of  every  American. — *'  The  Evening  Gazette,"  Cedar 
Rapids,  Iowa. 

I  write  this  article  as  the  result  of  conversations  and 
correspondence,  with  a  wide  group  of  Americans  and 
English  and  French^  made  up  of  politicians,  economists, 
historians,  psychologists,  and  literary  men.  I  find  in 
thoughtful  men  to-day  both  in  America  and  Europe 


264  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

a  challenge  of  certain  tendencies  in  our  national 
thought.  I  believe  that  challenge  to  be  well  grounded. 
A  great  mass  of  talk  and  letters  suddenly  came  to 
focus  one  day  in  what  one  man,  a  distinguished  scholar, 
expressed  to  me.  So  in  what  follows  I  have  taken  the 
lines  and  phrases  of  his  thought.  But  what  he  stated 
is  only  the  clear  expression  of  what  many  are  saying 
and  feeling. 

Certain  of  our  newspapers  and  of  our  popular  voices 
have  been  busy  in  creating  a  legend  of  Americanism 
which  contains  an  element  of  falsity.  We  have  dis- 
played a  self-complacency  in  our  proclamation  of 
freedom,  a  readiness  to  assume  that  it  was  our  mono- 
poly, and  that  no  other  nation  understood  so  fully 
what  it  meant  or  had  done  such  service  for  it.  This 
has  led  to  a  lack  of  sympathy  with  other  nations  that 
have  achieved  freedom  or  are  aspiring  after  it  or  are 
helping  to  strengthen  and  extend  it.  This  attitude 
has  been  reflected  in  the  past  in  our  school  histories. 
The  establishment  of  American  independence  was 
represented  in  these  school-books,  in  newspaper 
writing,  in  popular  speeches,  as  a  protest  against 
tyranny,  a  breaking-away  from  Old- World  chains. 
But  this  is  not  how  scientific  historians  of  the  modern 
school  see  that  event.  Despite  her  grave  mistakes 
then,  England  had  endowed  our  States,  as  she  has 
endowed  every  settlement  of  European  stock  which 
she  has  planted,  with  the  institutions  of  self-govern- 
ment, from  which  sprang  our  desire  for  a  wider  freedom. 
Despite  the  many  mistakes  she  has  made  since,  she 
has  carried  freedom  and  justice  to  new  populations, 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  265 

and  has  been  an  unwearied  breeder  of  free  nations. 
Our  popular  conception  of  our  Revolution,  our  self- 
complacency  in  our  proclamation  of  freedom  as  an 
American  monopoly,  have  kept  us  out  of  an  organic 
relation  with  the  whole  world  of  civiHzacion.  We 
have  failed  in  recent  years  to  feel  that  this  world  is 
one,  and  the  cause  of  freedom  a  single  cause,  to  whose 
fortunes  no  free  society  can  be  indifferent  or  neutral. 
That  breach  is  a  tragedy,  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest 
tragedies  in  history.  It  has  been  a  bad  thing  for 
civiHzation,  because  it  has  weakened  the  defence  of 
freedom  by .  alienating  its  strongest  advocates  from 
one  another,  and  persuading  one  of  them  to  stand 
aloof  from  its  struggles.  It  has  been  a  bad  thing  for 
America,  by  leading  her  to  imagine  that  she  is  not  as 
other  nations  are,  and  that  the  working  out  of  the  great 
issues  of  civilization  in  Europe  had  no  interest  for  her.^ 
This  falsity  in  the  popular  view  of  the  European  situ- 
ation has  cut  us  off  from  sympathy  with  other  peoples 
who  have  loved  freedom  not  less  sincerely.  We  have 
continually  misunderstood  England,  the  tjnrant  state 
which  America  had  defied.  We  have  had  the  curious 
spectacle  of  a  friendship  between  the  two  nations 
that  was  almost  wholly  one-sided.  England  has 
repeatedly  helped  and  supported  us  ;  we  have  not 
really  believed  that  England  stood,  in  the  main,  for 
freedom  and  justice.  And  what  is  true  of  our  attitude 
toward  England  is  true  in  varying  degree  of  our  attitude 
toward  the  other  *'  old  strugglers  "  of  Europe.  We 
have  not  believed  it  was  our  duty  to  give  support  to 
*  See  Appendix,  "  Backward  Races." 


266  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Belgium,  to  the  French,  or  to  the  ItaHans  in  the 
struggle  for  the  enlargement  of  liberty. 
^  When  the  autocrats  of  the  Holy  Alliance  were,  as 
Canning  put  it,  '*  aspiring  to  bind  Europe  in  chains," 
they  crushed  the  movement  toward  freedom  in  Italy 
and  Spain,  and  then  purposed  to  crush  it  also  in  Spanish 
America.  Canning,  in  the  name  of  Great  Britain, 
defied  them,  recognized  the  independence  of  the 
Spanish  colonies,  and  made  it  plain  that  the  British 
fleet  would  resist  any  attempt  to  send  armies  to  South 
America.  He  approached  our  Government  with  the 
suggestion  that  the  United  States  should  take  their 
stand  by  the  side  of  Great  Britain.  President  Monroe's 
message  was  the  result.  That  was  the  promise  that 
America  was  going  to  make  freedom  her  concern  even 
outside  of  her  own  bounds.  It  was  not  a  proclamation 
of  suzerainty  over  the  double  continent.  Monroe's 
message  and  the  fear  of  the  British  fleet  kept  European 
armies  out  of  South  America.  It  is  the  British  fleet 
which  has  in  recent  years  saved  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
from  challenge.  But  our  popular  conception  has  turned 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  into  an  assertion  of  American  self- 
containedness  and  indifference  to  Europe. 

Again,  in  the  Spanish-American  War  we  made  the 
cause  of  freedom  outside  our  bounds  our  own  cause. 
But  having  done  this,  we  came  to  regard  it  as  only  an 
American  question.  There  was  nothing  which  the 
Spaniards  did  in  Cuba  comparable  with  what  the 
Germans  have  done  in  Belgium.  The  sinking  of  the 
Maine  was  no  less  capable  of  explanation  and  excuse 
than  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.    There  was  no  tie 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  267 

of  obligation  to  Cuba  more  primal  than  our  national 
signature  to  The  Hague  conventions.  The  Belgian 
outrages  were  as  much  our  concern  as  the  Cuban 
outrages. 

Loyalty  to  an  ideal  becomes  vulgarized  and  tarnished 
when  it  is  interpreted  in  a  self-regarding  way.  It  is 
not  freedom  that  our  people  have  been  recently 
worshipping,  but  only  the  brand  of  it  called  American 
freedom,  which  we  have  persuaded  ourselves  is  some- 
thing peculiar  and  different  in  kind  from  other  brands. 
By  our  newspaper  and  popular  conception  of  American- 
ism we  have  not  taught  our  new-comers  the  American 
tradition  of  Franklin,  Monroe,  Lincoln,  and  John  Hay. 
We  have  taught  them  to  despise  other  lands,  to  regard 
all  the  peoples  of  the  Old  World  as  alike  reactionary 
and  illiberal.  We  have  failed  to  impart  an  understand- 
ing of  the  labours  for  the  expansion  of  liberty  which 
have  been  imdertaken  by  other  peoples.  Many  of  our 
people  have  come  to  believe  that  since  American 
freedom  is  something  peculiar  or  esoteric,  it  has  few 
or  no  responsibihties  in  the  larger  world,  and  may 
rightly  become  self-regarding.  In  the  present  war  it 
appears  as  little  more  than  the  opportunity  of  enlarging 
material  prosperity.  The  obligation  of  sacrifice,  the 
maintenance  of  other  thaa  our  own  rights,  seem  the 
wild  words  of  ideahsts  like  Putnam  and  Morton  Prince, 
and  the  quixotic  acts  of  college  boys  like  the  members 
of  the  Norton  Ambulance.  An  ideal  of  freedom  that  is 
restricted  and  purely  self-regarding,  however  eloquent 
the  phrases  that  clothe  it,  is  an  uninspiring  ideal. 
It  is  not  astonishing  that  many  of  our  citizens,  under 


268  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

the  influence  of  this  ideal,  have  concentrated  their 
attention  on  making  money  from  the  agonies  of 
Europe.  It  is  not  astonishing  that  some  element 
among  them  have  found  greater  inspiration  in  the 
exacting  demands  of  the  ideals  of  other  nations.  Even 
the  German  ideal  demands  heroic  sacrifice.  A  belief  in 
liberty  so  self -regarding  as  ours  cozens  itself  that  liberty 
is  served  even  by  accepting  the  Lusitania  crime,  passing 
lightly  over  the  Belgian,  Lorraine,  and  Armenian 
horrors,  and  submitting  to  the  outrages  of  I/-53. 

Our  recent  immigrants  are  led  to  beUeve  that 
in  coming  to  America  they  are  coming  to  the  only 
real  home  of  liberty,  that  they  have  no  responsibility 
for  the  championing  of  justice  elsewhere,  and  that  they 
have  no  concern  with  the  dog-fights  of  the  *'  effete 
monarchies  "  and  enemies  of  liberty  left  in  Europe. 
Some  of  these  new-comers  are  ready  to  adopt  that  view 
because  they  come  from  lands  where  tyranny  is  still 
in  command.  Justice  and  freedom  are  not  made  to 
appear  to  them  one  supreme  cause  wherever  they 
are  on  trial,  worthy  of  sacrifice ;  but  they  appear 
as  achievements  of  our  own,  peculiar  to  us,  rewarded 
with  material  advantages.  With  them  our  historic 
tradition  is  not  an  inheritance.  With  many  of  them 
it  is  not  even  an  acquisition.  The  terms  of  the  life 
which  created  our  tradition  were  not  terms  of  ease 
and  aloofness.  The  life  was  a  struggle  with  pioneer 
primitive  conditions,  against  forces  of  nature,  hostile 
bands  of  Indians,  foreign  troops,  and  traitorous  men 
among  us.  But  our  recent  immigrants  have  come  to 
us  to  escape  from  severe  conditions,  and  their  cry  is, 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  269 

in  the  words  of  Mary  Antin,  *'  What  has  America  given 
us  ?  "  Corruption  in  politics  and  business,  cosmo- 
politanism in  feeling,  luxury,  waste,  commercialism 
— ^all  these  are  increasingly  the  products  of  the  recent 
years.  Instead  of  being  the  struggling  arena  for  a 
great  experiment  in  democracy,  we  are  in  danger  of 
becoming  the  grab-bag  for  all  that  is  predatory  in 
human  nature.  With  the  change  in  blood  has  come 
a  change  in  national  character.  We  are  shaking  off 
the  old  beliefs,  the  tradition  of  sacrifice  and  discipline 
and  responsibility.  We  have  necessarily  failed  to 
impart  our  own  tradition  to  races  of  other  blood.  We 
have  also  failed  to  cherish  their  own  cultural  conscious- 
ness, and  use  the  excellence  in  their  tradition. 

In  a  smaller  matter  than  the  present  World  War  we 
could  comfort  ourselves  with  the  failures  of  other 
nations.  We  have  high  precedent  for  our  abstention 
from  crisis.  But  this  is  a  moment  when  France  and 
England  are  well  served  by  their  tradition  of  freedom 
and  justice,  and  when  our  modern  Americanism  lends 
itself  to  an  easy  distortion.  It  is  a  moment  when  one 
is  proud  to  be  a  Frenchman  or  an  Englishman,  and 
when  we,  for  all  our  prosperity,  do  not  feel  very  proud 
to  be  American.  There  have  been  moments  in  the 
past  when  the  prides  would  have  been  reversed  ; 
but  this  is  not  one  of  them,  and  this  is  the  greatest 
moment  of  history.^ 

1 1  leave  this  Chapter  as  it  was  written  some  months  ago.  Since 
then  the  United  States  has  joined  herself  to  the  democratic  move- 
ment and  is  not  longer  an  absentee  at  the  greatest  moment  of  history. 
We  Americans  believe  that  we  shall  have  the  same  right  to  pride 
in  our  young  men  which  England  has  had  for  three  years. 


270  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Nationality 

In  a  Fienchman  nationality  can  be  set  aflame  by  a 
touch.  He  has  consciously  thought  about  it.  This  is 
because  he  and  his  fellows  as  a  nation  have  been  in- 
vaded again  and  again,  and  as  a  nation  have  marched 
out  across  Europe.  Almost  every  half -century  France 
has  gone  forward  to  the  frontier,  following  or  facing 
some  imperialist,  to  bleed  its  life  away.  So  a  French- 
man kindles  at  thought  of  his  nation,  and  that  thought 
is  a  love  for  the  soil  of  his  pairie,  for  the  house  where  he 
was  born,  and  for  the  sunlight  and  the  equality  of  his 
beautiful  country. 

The  nationality  of  a  German  is  a  touchy  affair. 
It  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  his  country  was  a 
handful  of  petty  states!  Now  suddenly  a  big,  powerful, 
deific  engine,  the  state,  has  somehow  gathered  him  in 
with  the  weak  kingdoms,  and  he  is  half  afraid  that  the 
concern  will  slip  away  in  the  night,  and  leave  him  again 
with  his  dreams  and  his  music,  and  his  empire  broken 
back  into  small  bits.  He  is  still  in  the  pain  of  a  swift 
process. 

The  myth  of  nationality  is  a  profound  and  necessary 
truth,  as  well-grounded  as  any  that  governs  human 
nature.  It  is  blind  and  brutal  and  righteous.  It 
moves  to  aggression,  or  lives  peaceably  at  home.  It 
builds  big  guns  or  is  pastoral.  It  is  merely  the  col- 
lective expression  of  human  nature  in  the  particular 
group  which  circumstance  and  natural  liking  have 
created.  It  was  formed  as  much  by  chance  as  the 
family — ^accident,  propinquity,  commercial  considera- 
tions.   Once  formed,  it  is  as  natural  as  the  family. 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  271 

Tagore  says  that  "  a  new  age  is  imminent,  when  the 
ideal  of  nationalism  will  be  discarded." 
But  a  greater  than  Tagore  has  said : 

What  muddles  the  moderns  about  the  institution 
of  the  family  is  what  muddles  them  also  about 
Nationalism  :  it  is  this  double  aspect  of  unity 
and  multiplicity.  The  principle  of  one  house,  one 
vote,  seems  to  them  a  crumbling  dream.  So  some 
of  them  cannot  believe  in  the  corporate  mystery 
of  patriotism,  though  it  sets  the  world  oafire  before 
their  very  eyes.  They  ask  what  a  nation  is ; 
and  can  only  be  shown  dissolving  views  and  visions. 
They  see  a  mob  tossing  in  a  market-place ;  and 
then  a  king  sitting  alone  upon  a  throne  of  marble  ; 
and  then  only  innumerable  interiors,  like  cells 
of  a  bee-hive,  with  each  man  eating  his  own  break- 
fast and  minding  his  own  business ;  and  then, 
again,  only  smoke  and  sky,  and  a  painted  rag  upon 
a  pole  that  drives  out  upon  the  driving  wind.  And 
all  these  are  one  thing. 

That  nationality  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  penetrate 
to  deeper  sources  of  instinctive  life  than  other  forms 
of  association,  such  as  religion  and  socialism,  is  proved 
by  the  alignments  of  the  present  war,  where  comrade 
fights  comrade,  and  Catholic  fights  Catholic.  Zim- 
mern  gives  the  reason  : 

Why  should  our  citizenship  take  precedence  of 
our  trade  unionism  or  our  business  obligations  ? 
Aristotle  replies,  and  in  spite  of  recent  critics  I 
think  the  reply  still  holds  good ;  because,  but  for 
the  existence  of  the  state  and  the  reign  of  law 
maintained  by  it,  none  of  these  associations  could 
have  been  formed  or  be  maintained. 


272  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Nationality  lies  very  deeply  buried  in  the  sub- 
consciousness of  an  Englishman.  It  required  a  world 
war  to  dig  it  out.  Empire  talk  never  existed  with  the 
English  till  it  came  to  the  surface  with  Burke,  and 
received  from  him  a  certain  shaping  and  impetus. 
It  dozed  again  till  Disraeli  gave  it  a  shove,  and  it 
sped  along  rather  briskly  in  the  latter  days  of  Victoria 
and  her  Second  Jubilee.  But  it  never  took  strong  hold 
of  the  general  imagination,  and  there  have  been  few 
jingo  hysterias  breaking  about  the  idea  of  empire. 
There  is  of  course  an  inner  group  of  men,  highly  aware 
of  empire  as  an  affair  of  the  state,  and  a  much  wider 
group  of  upper-class  families  whose  sons  find  their 
career  in  being  governors,  magistrates,  and  minor 
officials.  The  Anglo-Indian,  for  instance,  is  a  rather 
well-defined  type.  The  young  men  have  to  go  some- 
where. They  are  yrell  educated,  men  of  honour,  and, 
often  enough,  with  a  touch  of  vitality  and  adventure. 
Accordingly  many  of  them  trek  off  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth  and  enter  public  service  in  a  crown  colony. 

A  few  of  them  go  farther  yet,  and  push  the  imperial 
map  into  the  jungle,  or  plant  the  flag  in  a  floe.  Selous 
was  a  true  Englishman  of  this  sort.  So  was  Scott. 
The  same  breed  of  men  are  the  sailors,  and  they  have 
kept  his  Majesty's  navy  up  to  specifications  for  three 
hundred  years.  That  is  nationality  for  them,  streaking 
out  over  polar  ice,  splashing  through  swamps,  and 
rolling  through  the  seven  seas. 

But  these  men  are  a  tiny  fraction  of  the  community, 
— ''  men  of  Biddeford  in  Devon," — ^and  their  idea  of 
England  as  a  good  place  to  see  once  a  year  or  once  in 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  273 

three  years  isn't  the-  nationality  of  the  mass  The 
nationality  of  the  mass  of  people  lies  deep,  and  in  quiet 
days  they  hardly  know  they  have  it.  There  is  a  lot 
of  silent  pride  in  the  navy  and  sea-power,  and  the 
"  Britannia  rule  the  waves  "  line  probably  comes  as 
near  to  saying  something  as  a  popular  song  usually 
does.  But  of  a  dramatization  of  the  "  Island-Queen  " 
there  is  none  in  the  popular  mind.  The  unconscious 
pride  is  enormous.  You  feel  it  in  the  abject  loneliness 
of  an  Englishman  off  British  soil.  I  have  had  very 
intimate  English  friends  in  New  York,  and  there  was 
always  a  kind  of  "  lost  "  quality  about  their  per- 
sonality. They  were  loyal  to  the  place  that  gave  them 
bread,  but  they  waited  for  the  return  with  a  long  and 
touching  patience.  It  was  my  fortune  to  see  them 
returned,  and  catch  the  sigh  of  relief  which  the  first 
years  of  the  home-coming  called  out.  Every  simple 
little  thing  seemed  good  to  these  men,  and  they  would 
point  out  to  me  the  wide  commons  of  Wimbledon  and 
the  small,  friendly  locomotives  of  the  suburban  railway. 
An  EngHshman  has  to  suf[er  before  he  knows  he  has  a 
country. 

It  is  suffering  which  the  war  has  brought,  the  sense 
that  something  precious  and  intimate  is  imperilled. 
The  Englishman  likes  the  customs  of  his  country  and 
his  own  way  of  carrying  on.  Very  slowly  he  learned 
that  something  was  going  to  intrude  and  destroy  that 
private  wilfulness,  that  right  of  the  individual  man  not 
only  to  his  life,  which  is  a  little  thing,  but  to  his  own 
peculiar  way  of  living  it,  which  is  an  important  thing. 
His  sense  of  possession  of  individual  liberty  is  stronger 
s 


274  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

than  his  property  sense.  Gradually  the  impression 
came  upon  him  that  there  was  a  hubbub  across  the 
Channel,  and  that  the  noise  was  growing  louder,  and 
if  he  didn't  do  something  there  would  be  no  end  to  it. 
His  peace  and  quiet  would  be  gone,  and  he  would  have 
to  live  by  some  one  else's  rules.  As  a  young  English- 
woman said  to  me  :  "  We  don't  want  strangers  to  step 
in  and  impose  on  us  their  manner  of  life.  We  don't 
want  to  be  speeded  up." 

But  still  we  have  failed  to  reach  the  basis  of  the 
instinctive  nationality  in  an  Englishman.  I  think  it 
lies  in  the  feelings  grouped  around  his  locality  and  his 
set  of  friends,  the  values  that  are  closely  familiar.^ 
One  hears  a  man  from  Bernardsville,  New  Jersey,  boast 
about  Niagara  Falls  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  if 
they  were  landscape  features  of  his  backyard  ;  but  an 
Englishman,  if  he  talks  at  all,  will  speak  of  the  fields 
he  has  hunted  across,  and  the  pleasant  turn  of  the 
hills  that  are  in  sight  from  his  windows 

I  was  glad  to  get  it  on  good  authority  that  I  was  right 
about  this  local  patriotism.  Captain  Basil  Williams 
has  made  a  careful  study  of  the  organization  of  the 
British  army.  It  is  the  function  of  his  department  to 
do  so.  He  told  me  the  nature  of  the  appeal  by  which 
the  millions  of  men  were  recruited.  It  wasn't  a  vague 
noisy  crusade  of  advertising  posters  and  general 
patriotism.  It  was  directly  aimed  at  where  the  men 
lived  and  their  feeling  of  comradeship.  The'regiments 
were  recruited  by  counties.  (A  few  regiments  came 
from  more  than  one  county.)  The  unit  of  recruiting 
» See  Appendix,  "  Local  Patriotism." 


SOCIAL   STUDIES  275 

is  the  battalion  of  one  thousand  men.  In  the  original 
standing  army,  and  in  the  new  armies,  the  basis  of  the 
system  is  the  regimental  local  idea.  Devonshire 
means  something  to  a  Chagford  man  that  Columbia 
County,  New  York,  does  not  mean  to  a  Hudson  man. 
The  Devon  man  and  his  people  have  shot  rabbits  and 
ruled  the  sea  from  that  town  in  that  county  for  several 
centuries. 

When  the  war  began  and  large  numbers  of  recruits 
poured  in,  the  old  regimental  system  was  maintained, 
and  every  new  battalion  was  affiliated  to  some  old 
regiment.  The  first  new  units  were  the  special 
reserves,  a  battalion  or  two  for  each  regiment,  corres- 
ponding to  the  old  militia.  Then  there  came  battal- 
ions of  territorials,  corresponding  to  the  old  volunteers. 
These  territorials  would  be  chosen  from  the  smaller 
country  districts.    Then  followed  the  service  battalions. 

It  was  difficult  at  first  to  obtain  equipment  and 
housing.  So  municipalities  organized  battalions  in 
their  own  locality,  and  handed  them  over  when  the 
army  was  ready  for  them.  Men  said  they  would  like 
to  go  with  their  neighbours  and  pals.  Clerks,  sports- 
men, football  players,  men  with  the  same  interest  in 
life,  chummed  together.  War  was  a  strange,  new  job, 
leaving  the  individual  man  lonely,  and  he  wished  to 
face  it  with  friends.  These  "  pal "  battalions  were 
still  attached  to  the  original  regiment. 

In  both  the  service  and  pals  battalions  Kitchener 
wished  reserves.  So  each  battahon  added  to  its  one 
thousand  men  five  hundred  more  men,  making  a 
reserve    battalion     Thus    there    resulted    a    reserve 


276  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

battalion  of  service  battalions,  and  a  reserve  battalion 
of  pals  battalions. 

There  is  no  unit  of  nulnbers  for  a  regiment,  which 
can  have  two  thousand  men  or  twenty  thousand. 
One  regiment  has  twenty-six  battalions,  but  the 
expanding  numbers  are  glued  together  by  the  com- 
radeship of  long  association  in  the  pursuits  of  peace 
and  by  the  sense  of  locality. 

The  first  two  armies,  Ki  and  K2,  were  new 
service  battalions  from  every  regiment  of  the 
British  army.  The  old  army  was  thus  dupli- 
cated by  the  first  two  new  armies.  The  third 
new  army,  K3,  was  raised  where  recruiting  was 
best,  largely  in  the  northern  and  western  portions. 
K4  and  K5  were  made  up  of  pals  battalions.  Of  course 
all  the  other  arms  of  service,  medical  staff,  engineers, 
artillery,  were  raised  locally,  and  were  represented 
in  these  units.  And  this  appeal  to  local  patriotism 
has  been  the  method  of  increasing  an  army  of  five  hun- 
dred thousand  to  five  million. 

Every  regiment  has  ancient  rights  and  privileges 
and  points  of  local  pride.  The  Honourable  Artillery 
Company  has  the  right  to  march  through  London 
with  fixed  bayonets,  and  the  men  exercise  the  right. 
At  the  entrance  of  the  city  they  halt,  unbuckle  the 
bayonet,  and  thrust  it  into  place.  This  ancestral 
quality  to  an  army  unit  gives  an  esprit  de  corps  that 
the  men  inherit,  and  a  tradition  which  touches  them 
to  quickened  service.  It  is  a  survival  of  the  old  linked 
battalion  system,  which  provided  that  there  should 
be  two  regular  battalions,  one  normally  abroad  and 


Social  studies  277 

one  in  England.  Overseas  service  and  peace  had 
combined  to  create  the  system.  It  gave  an  expedition- 
ary force  to  guard  India  and  South  Africa.  The  old 
feeling  was  entirely  regimental.  Lately  there  has  been 
an  extension  of  the  scale  of  feehng  corresponding  to 
the  vast  area  of  the  war  itself,  and  the  division  has 
become  more  important  than  ever  before,  and  develops 
a  self -consciousness  of  its  own.  This  extension  of 
feehng  and  organization  keeps  step  with  the  new 
organized  state,  which  is  replacing  the  tiny  village 
republics  of  local  self-government. 

But  local  pride  is  still  the  tap-root  of  English 
nationality.  In  the  early  days  of  the  war  the  German 
chanted  "  Deutschland,"  but  the  Tommy  sang  of 
Leicester  Square.  Just  now  "  Blighty  "  is  the  word. 
Soon  it  will  be  some  other  phrase,  but  always  it  will 
tell  of  a  little  place,  a  city  street  or  a  country  lane. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LLOYD  GEORGE 

I  HAVE  recently  come  from  a  long  talk  with  Mr.  Lloyd 
George.  What  he  convinced  me  of  was  that  he  under- 
stands and  cares  for  our  country.  Frankly,  I  had 
doubted  this.  I  was  left  subdued  by  his  militant 
interview  on  "  Hands  Off/'  which  was  harsh  and 
necessary,  but  which  did  not  bind  Downing  Street, 
London,  to  First  Avenue,  Cedar  Rapids,  Iowa.  For 
two  years  I  had  wished  that  an  EngHsh  statesman  would 
lift  clear  of  his  business  with  the  enemy  and  give  a 
word  for  neutral  public  opinion.  Lloyd  George  talked 
and  listened  for  an  hour  and  three  quarters  on  the  one 
subject  of  the  middle  West  of  America.  He  under- 
stands the  people.  He  knows  that  the  public  policy 
of  the  nation  is  determined  there.  He  knows  that 
our  democratic  experiment  is  being  decided  by  the 
prairie  States.  He  quoted  a  remark  of  Henry  Ford, 
not  with  amusement  or  scorn,  but  as  significant.  By 
that  he  revealed  that  he  knows  more  about  the  real 
America  than  half  the  editors  of  Eastern  newspapers. 
He  understands  America  with  the  same  sympathy 
which  Lincoln  showed  for  the  Lancashire  cotton 
operatives  in  his  famous  letter  to  them.  Lloyd  George 
has  the  same  desire  for  a  frank  presentation  of  facts 
that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  revealed  in  his  appeals  to 

278 


LLOYD    GEORGE  279 

the  British  pubhc  in  the  industrial  cities.  What  he 
wishes  is  that  our  people  should  hold  the  same  sympathy 
with  the  struggle  of  the  European  democracies  that 
the  working-classes  of  England  learned  to  feel  for 
our  Civil  War  struggle,  after  Lincoln  and  Beecher  had 
made  clear  to  them  that  we  were  fighting  for  human 
liberty.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  does  not  regard  the  war  as 
a  dog-fight  or  as  a  sporting  proposition.  He 
sees  it  as  an  incalculable  tragedy.  With  his 
Celtic  imagination  he  lives  in  a  profound  sense  of  the 
pity  and  the  waste  of  it.  He  has  as  little  hate  and 
bitterness  as  the  soldiers  of  England  and  France  with 
whom  I  have  lived  at  the  front. 

He  has  a  habit  of  informal  breakfast  at  a  sunny 
little  fiat  about  ten  minutes  away  from  Downing 
Street.  Here  two  or  three  of  his  friends  meet  him. 
He  comes  in  well  rested,  and  decides  points  of  policy 
and  indulges  in  reminiscence,  amusing  and  poetic. 
And  all  his  talk  has  a  lightness  of  touch.  The  guests 
of  this  morning  were  Mr.  Da  vies,  the  war  secretary ; 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  the  manufacturer  and  social 
worker  ;  and  H.  N.  Spalding.  Mr.  Rowntree  and  Mr. 
Spalding  were  at  that  time  conducting  the  depart- 
ment of  welfare  work  in  the  ministry  of  munitions. 

"  Are  you  giving  them  welfare  ?  "  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
asked  Mr.  Rowntree.  **  Here,"  he  said,  turning  to 
me,  "  is  the  greatest  attempt  ever  made  by  a  Govern- 
ment to  surround  the  lives  of  the  workers  with  safe- 
guards for  their  safety  and  health  and  well-being." 

"  What  Americans  and  English  need  more  than 
any  one  thing  else  is  a  smoking-room  acquaintance, 


28o  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

where  they  exchange  their  views  informally  and  get 
to  know  the  man." 

It  is  this  smoking-room  intimacy  that  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  gives  to  all  whom  he  meets.  He  is  not  afraid 
of  being  himself.  He  is  as  daring  in  his  comments 
on  men  and  things  as  Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  charming  as 
the  late  William  James.  He  is  used  to  being  loved. 
The  lines  about  the  eyes  reveal  a  man  who  works  his 
purpose  by  geniality  in  a  flow  of  fim  and  charm  and 
sympathy.  The  pohtical  battles  of  twenty  years  have 
left  less  impression  on  his  spirit  than  the  victories  he 
has  won  as  peace-maker  and  harmonizer.  He  re- 
ferred to  two  editors  who  have  recently  been  attacking 
him.    He  said  : 

*'  I  don't  mind  their  criticizing  me.  I  can  take 
blows  and  I  can  give  them.  But  they  are  making  it 
hard  for  us  to  get  together  after  the  war.  We  don't 
want  differences  when  we  come  to  the  work  of 
reconstruction." 

He  ends  a  talk  by  being  more  completely  the  master 
of  your  thought  than  you  are  yourself.  He  states  it 
clearly  and  beautifully,  and  reduces  it  to  a  programme 
of  action. 

''  To  understand  your  people  or  any  people/'  he 
said,  '*  it  is  necessary  for  one  to  pass  inside  the  temple." 

He  practises  what  Sainte-Beuve  preached,  that  to 
know  a  religion  you  must  be  a  worshipper  inside  the 
church.  So  week  by  week  Sainte-Beuve  became  a 
mystic  and  a  pagan  and  an  epicurean  as  he  served  up 
the  soul  of  the  writer  whom  he  was  interpreting.  This 
is  the  high  gift  which  Lloyd  George  possesses.    He  can 


LLOYD   GEORGE  281 

step  up  to  the  very  altar  of  a  man's  most  secret  belief. 
This  is  the  gift  which  has  made  him  the  one  Briton 
who  is  perfectly  understood  in  France.  He  spoke  only 
a  couple  of  sentences  inside  the  citadel  of  Verdun, 
but  they  revealed  to  France  that  he  knew  what  that 
symbol  meant  to  them.  For  in  his  best  moments  he 
becomes  something  other  than  the  grim  fighter  and 
the  adroit  politician  who  uses  all  the  tricks  of  the  game. 
Suddenly  for  his  hearers,  and  unexpectedly  to  him- 
self, he  lifts  by  an  exquisite  imagination  to  the  place 
of  insight,  and  becomes  the  voice  of  obscure  people, 
and  understands  men  he  has  never  met.  If  he  talks 
with  a  slangy  person,  he  discharges  himself  in  vivid, 
staccato  phrases.  The  nature  and  direction  of  his 
rebound  are  determined  by  the  substance  that  he 
encounters.  He  was  born  to  react.  He  has  a  mind 
that  kindles,  and  a  style  that  rises  very  lightly  and 
gracefully  into  poetic  beauty.  There  has  been  no 
other  such  passage  of  prose  produced  by  the  war 
as  that  paragraph  of  his  on  "  little  nations  "  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fight. 

A  breezy  young  officer  of  the  flying  service  once  told 
me  the  shameful  secret  of  Lloyd  George.  It  was  that 
the  war  minister  went  around  obtaining  advice  from 
experts^  that  he  really  didn't  know  all  about  it  by 
himself. 

Earlier  in  the  war  a  prominent  banker  told  me  that 
the  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  not  the 
financial  authority  which  the  multitude  thought  him, 
that  he  held  consultations  with  leading  bankers,  that, 
in  fact,  the  Chancellor  had  consulted  with  his  own  firm 


282  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

Lloyd  George  is  the  leader  of  a  democracy  because 
he  chums  with  experts,  and  swings  to  the  currents  of 
the  collective  will.  His  personality  contains  the 
virtues  and  perils  of  the  democracy  itself.  For  it,  too, 
may  some  day  establish  a  bureaucracy  of  experts  that 
could  be  the  tightest  little  oligarchy  of  history,  and  it, 
too,  may  yet  swing  to  tides  that  are  ebbing.  It  is 
not  often  that  one  sees  a  community  incarnating  itself 
in  a  single  man.  But  the  British  democracy  has  its 
incarnation  in  Lloyd  George,  responsive  to  subconscious 
forces,  and  turning  to  specialists  for  aid  in  crises. 

He  faces  the  most  difficult  years  of  his  life,  and  he 
knows  it.  A  man  of  his  temperament  can  help  to 
conduct  a  great  war.  All  that  was  needed  was  the 
inspirational  quality  to  rouse  his  people,  the  energy  to 
set  them  at  work,  the  creative  imagination  to  see  the 
war  in  its  extent,  its  duration,  its  requirements. 
None  of  these  tests  has  over-taxed  his  powers,  for 
they  all  lay  inside  the  area  of  his  competence.  But 
when  peace  comes,  there  is  no  longer  one  straight 
road  to  a  clear  goal.  All  the  forces  of  reaction  will 
coalesce.  All  the  bad  counsellors  will  make  a  cloud  of 
witness  about  him.  All  the  paths  to  immediate 
power  will  lie  in  *'  playing  safe."  If  he  remains  true 
to  himself,  he  will  be  cursed  with  a  vehemence  which 
will  make  his  early  years  seem  a  sweet  season  of  delight. 
There  will  be  no  easy  victories.  All  will  be  turmoil 
and  bitterness,  for  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  the 
greatest  fight  of  the  ages — ^the  fight  of  the  democracies 
inside  themselves.  We  had  our  little  Lloyd  George 
in  America,  a  well  known  former  district-attorney 


LLOYD   GEORGE  283 

of  New  York.  He  had  the  same  transcendent  charm. 
But  the  wrong  crowd  got  him,  not  by  iUicit  means. 
They  won  him  on  his  social  side,  the  quality  in  the  man 
that  likes  people  and  wishes  to  be  liked.  And  he  lost 
his  sense  of  direction.  He  forgot  the  long,  hard  fight 
he  was  making  to  give  the  people  better  government. 

The  coming  years  of  Lloyd  George  will  be  determined 
by  the  kind  of  persons  who  surround  him,  and  touch 
that  sensitive,  quivering  mind  to  action. ^  If  he  holds 
fast  to  his  good  Welsh  friends  and  to  men  like  Dr. 
Clifford,  the  sturdy  old  radical  warrior  of  noncon- 
formity, he  will  go  simply  all  his  days,  and  continue 
to  express  the  living  element  of  his  people.  But  if  he 
leans  toward  the  men  of  power,  and  listens  to  those 
voices  who  will  tell  him  of  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world,  and  who  will  promise  him  the  leadership  of  a 
reactionary  militaristic  Tory  party,  he  will  lose  his 
own  soul.  For  the  genius  of  the  man  is  his  human 
sympathy.  He  was  meant  to  be  a  pathfinder  for  feet 
too  tired  to  win  their  own  way  into  the  open.  He  was 
meant  to  think  himself  inside  the  mind  of  other  men 
and  other  races. 

The  future  may  rest  with  him  as  with  no  other 

single  man  among  the   Western   peoples.    He   will 

soon   face   a   world  no  longer  sharply  defined   into 

enemies,  allies,    and    neutrals,  but    a    world    where 

unguessed  tendencies  are  forming,  and  new  forces  of 

emancipation  are  fighting  for  recognition. 

*  A.  G.  Gardiner  brought  out  this  point  in  a  brilliant  study,  several 
years  ago. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  Last  Word 

I  have  sought  in  this  book  to  show  the  passing 
of  England, — Little  England,  Old  England, — ^the 
crumbling  of  its  caste  system,  and  the  emergence  of 
the  England  of  John  Ball  from  inarticulateness  into 
power.  And  a  yet  greater  thing  has  come — ^the  advent 
of  the  new  British  commonwealth.^  Democratic 
control  is  being  established.  Labour  is  taking  over 
the  management  of  society.  The  women  have  gone 
out  to  win  their  world,  and  they  face  a  bitter  struggle. 
The  book  further  records  the  rebirth  of  nationaHty  in 
Ireland.  It  shows  the  machinery  of  joint  boards, 
workshop  councils,  imperial  conference  and  franchise 
extension,  by  which  the  transformation  will  be  worked. 
It  tells  of  the  terms  of  the  new  status  for  the  masses  : 
minimum  wage,  limitation  of  hours,  choice  of  work, 
control  inside  the  industry.  Every  change  was  long 
prepared  for,  and  built  out  of  age-old  materials,  and 
every  change  is  made  by  compromise.  But  the 
change  carries  a  long  way,  because  the  momentum  ""is 
continuous  and  along  a  straight  line.  After  all,  there 
is  nothing  so  revolutionary  as  a  great  tradition,  and 
the  most  daring  reconstruct  or  s  are  often  men  of  Tory 
blood. 

See  Appendix,  "  The  British  Commonwealth.'! 
284 


A   LAST   WORD  285 

So  I  have  tried  to  show  that  this  change^  is  not  a 
hasty  chance  revolution,  but  the  natural  growth  of 
the  English  tradition.  The  little  vessel  that  contained 
that  tradition  has  been  broken,  but  the  germinal 
principle  has  been  scattered  rather  widely  around  the 
world.  I  have  tried  to  give  the  book  coherence, 
because  the  theme  is  the  principle  of  democratic  con- 
trol. It  is  this  principle  which  is  shattering  the  caste 
system,  reconstructing  industry,  emancipating  women, 
stirring  Ireland,  seething  through  the  colonies,  and 
transforming  the  far-flung  empire  into  the  British 
commonwealth. 

What  kind  of  country  are  the  people  making  of 
England  ?  They  are  going  to  give  larger  returns  to 
productive  labour  and  skilled  management,  and 
diminishing  returns  to  absentee  capital — shareholders, 
speculators,  and  dummy  directors.  The  old  profiteer- 
ing will  be  ended.  The  first  charge  against  production 
will  be  a  living  wage  for  the  workers  and  the  reward  of 
ability  for  the  management.  Within  five  years  I 
believe  that  we  shall  see  England  an  organized  State 
under  democratic  control — ^with  an  increasing  fraction 
of  the  volume  of  production  conducted  under  co-opera- 
tion and  national  and  municipal  ownership.  The 
remaining  portion  of  the  volume  of  production  will  be 
conducted  under  private  enterprise,  but  with  demo- 
cratic control  in  two  ways  :  (i)  by  Government  over- 
sight ;  (2)  by  trade-union  workers'  control,  through 
workshop  councils,  joint  district  boards,  and  national 
trade  boards.  The  relationship  of  these  trade  pariia- 
ments  to  ParHament  has  not  yet  been  clarified. 


286  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  British  people  have  been  so  busy  revolutionizing 
their  world  by  action  that  they  haven't  time  to  see 
that  already  they  have  constructed  a  new  society. 
But  the  change  is  apparent  to  one  who  has  visited  the 
island  during  the  last  seventeen  years.  The  social 
organism  is  spotted  with  rudiments,  like  the  human 
body,  and  the  old-timers  still  brood  deeply  on  these 
ancient  remains,  as  if  in  them  they  found  the  deeper 
transcendental  sense  of  being.  The  spurs  of  officers, 
the  wigs  of  barristers,  the  intoning  of  archdeacons, 
the  laissez-faire  of  profiteers,  the  pheasants  of  dukes 
are  already  historic  rather  than  contemporary.  Present- 
day  England  is  becoming  an  industrial  democracy. 

I  think  I  have  made  plain  that  the  programme  of 
reconstruction  is  far  from  victorious  attainment. 
The  woman's  movement  bristles  with  unanswered 
questions.  Labour  has  failed  to  develop  its  experts 
and  leaders,  and  when  it  does,  there  remains  the 
intricate  problem  of  democratic  control,  where  a  set 
of  experts  sit  at  the  inner  wheels.  Freedom  is  a  hard 
taskmaster.  And  deeper  yet  is  the  problem  of  what 
excellence  shall  be  made  of  the  life  that  is  free. 

I  am  painfully  aware  of  failure  in  giving  my  account. 
I  have  had  to  use  too  brief  observation  and  only 
five  months  of  writing  on  what  ought  to  be  the  work  of 
a  lifetime.  The  result  is  unavoidably  a  hasty  journal- 
istic resume.  It  was  my  wish  to  keep  the  record  free 
from  praise  or  blame,  and  to  let  it  tell  of  principles  and 
tendencies  in  a  community  of  great  variety.  But  to 
my  own  knowledge  I  have  often  failed  to  capture  what 
is  characteristic.    There  is  something  perdurable  and 


A   LAST   WORD  287 

continuing  about  British  character.  No  outer  violence 
can  shake  the  citadel  of  the  individual  soul.  The 
Briton  is  not  only  willing  to  die  in  what  is  plainly  a 
great  matter,  such  as  the  freeing  of  Belgium,  he  is 
willing  to  be  laughed  at  and  to  be  put  into  prison  for 
his  private  pet  belief.  He  interrupts  public  meetings 
and  deposes  leaders  if  the  speaker  or  the  representative 
outpaces  the  plain  man's  view  of  what  is  common 
sense.  There  is  no  British  type.  There  are  many 
types,  and  then,  in  between  the  composite,  a  multitude 
of  "  infinitely  repellent  particles.  '*  That  individuaHsm, 
which  was  in  the  race  in  Chaucer's  time,  and  again  found 
record  in  Ben  Jonson's  men  of  humour,  has  never 
died,  and  no  "collective  wiir*  or  state  control  will 
ever  rob  the  British  democracy  of  the  salt  and  tang  of 
its  variety,  the  loud  protest  of  its  protestants  and  the 
dissidence  of  its  dissent.  So  I  have  rendered  official 
stupidities  with  Ireland  and  the  Russian  refugees. 
But  the  final  truth  doesn't  rest  there.  I  remember  a 
talk  I  had  with  the  mayor  of  the  largest  sea-coast 
resort,  and  how  he  told  me  of  returning  a  German 
lad  to  his  home-country  after  the  war  broke  out. 
There  is  a  kindliness  in  the  race.  Many  times  I  have 
been  irritated  by  something  pig-headed  and  uncon- 
sciously arrogant  in  the  people,  the  quality  which 
Havelock  Ellis  describes  when  he  says,  "It  is  the 
temper  of  a  vigorous,  independent,  opinionated,  free- 
spoken,  yet  sometimes  suspicious  people  among  whom 
every  individual  feels  in  himself  the  impulse  to  rule." 
It  springs  from  the  tradition  of  a  governing  class,  and 
I  once  heard  one  of  the  most  famous  men  in  Europe 


288  INSIDE  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

tell  how  a  certain  English  nobleman  always  made  him 
feel :  "  You  belong  to  a  race  which  we  once  ruled. 
Really,  we  ought  to  be  ruling  you  now.''  Then  there 
comes  to  me  the  intimate  talk  I  recently  had  with  a 
librarian. 

''  For  five  generations  my  family  has  been  in  the 
public  service/'  he  said,  "  and  I  could  not  be  happy 
elsewhere.  I  receive  five  hundred  pounds  a  year. 
Recently,  a  business  house  offered  me  nine  hundred 
pounds,  with  the  promise  of  promotion.  But  I  could 
not  be  happy  in  other  work.  We  do  not  want  money 
primarily,  so  long  as  there  is  security,  and  enough  for 
a  decent  living,  and  a  pension,  perhaps,  at  the  end 
of  it  all.  What  can  money  offer  compared  with  public 
service  ?  " 

That  is  the  secret  of  what  is  best  in  English  life : 
the  finest  men  in  public  service,  a  level  of  conduct, 
clean  administration  and  go vernmen  t .  The  democracy 
must  never  lower  that  standard. 

For  the  opportunity  of  meeting  the  moving  spirits 
of  the  reconstruction,  the  leaders  of  labour,  welfare 
work,  the  woman's  movement,  Cabinet  ministers, 
writers,  officials,  I  owe  grateful  thanks  to  H.  N.  Spald- 
ing, Seebohm  Rowntree,  and  Geoffrey  Butler.  They 
were  active  in  effecting  new  connections,  unaware  that 
they  themselves  were  among  the  most  valuable  of  the 
group  whom  I  met.  And  from  the  many  talks  I  have 
seemed  to  verify  what  I  have  lon<5  believed — ^that  the 
British  people  are  a  great  democratic  force  in  the  world. 
I  beHeve  that  in  accomplished  reform  they  are  a 
generation  ahead  of  the  United  States,  and  that  they 


A   LAST   WORD  289 

see  more  clearly  than  we  the  immense  responsibilities 
which  the  principle  of  democratic  control  creates. 

I  am  convinced  that  our  own  future  is  bound  up 
with  that  of  England,  that  together  with  England 
and  France  we  can  face  the  world  with  security,  and 
gradually  and  painfully  make  the  democratic  principle 
prevail.  I  am  convinced  that,  divided,  both  England 
and  America  will  be  fatally  weakened,  and  that  the 
future  will  be  poorer  because  of  the  split.  What  is 
needed  is  interpretation  of  each  country  to  the  other, 
leading  to  intellectual  understanding,and  finally  to  good- 
will, f  For  that  common  understanding  I  consider  it  of 
importance  that  England  shall  conquer  a  certain' 
arrogance,  a  certain  unwillingness  to  accept  us  as 
grown-up,  and  that  she  shall  clear  the  Irish  situation. 
For  that  common  understanding  I  consider  it  of  equal 
importance  that  America  should  cease  her  policy  of 
aloofness,  and  overcome  the  self-complacency  which 
believes  that  our  country  alone  is  the  land  of  freedom 
and  justice  and  the  champion -of  democracy.  Then, 
together,  in  humihty,  we  can  achieve  greatness,  and 
extend  the  principle  of  democratic  control.    - 


APPENDIX 

IMPERIAL   PARLIAMENT 

In  an  outline  of  the  new  imperial  commonwealth  to  which 
Lord  Milner  has  given  his  approval  the  functions  of  an  im- 
perial parliament  are  suggested  ; 

The  first  of  these  is  the  support  and  maintenance  of  the  navy 
and  naval  estabUshments  and  fortifications  throughout  the  empire. 
The  second  is  the  control  of  the  expeditionary  army  and  the  main- 
tenance of  a  skeleton  military  establishment  for  the  empire  by  which 
the  national-service  militias  that  must  certainly  follow  this  war 
could  be  gunned,  mobilized,  and  directed  in  an  imperial  crisis. 
The  third  is  the  imperial  control  of  the  food-supply  and  of  the 
imperial  resources  of  raw  material.  The  fourth  is  imperial  transit, 
posts,  money,  standards,  ports  and  seaways.  The  fifth  is  the  com- 
mon imperial  trade  policy.  The  sixth  is  the  supreme  direction  of 
education,  not  with  any  power  of  prohibition,  but  with  unlimited 
powers  of  endowment,  to  maintain  the  common  language  and  the 
supply  of  higher  education  universally  throughout  the  empire. 
The  seventh  is  the  maintenance  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  empire. 
The  eighth  is  the  control  of  foreign  policy  and  the  continuation  of 
the  imperial  trusteeship  over  the  non-represented  dependencies. 

WORKERS'    EDUCATION 

The  modem  British  radical  is  a  man  in  command  of  the 
figures  in  his  industry.  His  wage  demand  is  not  a  blank  check 
drawn  against  the  full  productive  power  of  industry.  It  is  an 
exact  statement  of  the  amount  of  cash  which  the  employer  has 
just  put  into  his  own  pocket.  This  type  of  worker  is  perfectly 
willing  to  hold  a  conference  on  the  basis  of  a  show-down  of 
facts.  This  mental  clarity  is  not  true  of  the  mass  of  labour, 
but  it  is  true  of  the  advanced  groups.  Education  has  been 
at  work  and  has  given  them  an  intellectual  basis  for  their 
desires.    Those  desires,  expressed  in  the  form  of  demands, 

291 


292  APPENDIX 

are  less  noisy  and  more  deadly  than  the  old  class-conscious 
battle-cries.  There  is  an  atmosphere  of  smokeless  powder 
to  the  syndicalist  movement  in  the  hands  of  the  miners, 
transport  workers,  railwaymen,  and  engineers. 

An  admirable  study  of  this  intellectual  ferment  in  the 
South  Wales  coal-fields  has  recently  been  made  by  a  special 
correspondent  of  "  The  Times."  He  shows  how  the  miners, 
when  they  tackle  Lord  Rhondda  and  the  other  barons  of  the 
collieries,  figure  out  costs  from  statistics,  and  challenge  their 
management  to  a  joint  audit.  In  describing  the  careful 
preparation  which  these  men  have  received,  he  says  ; 

What  is  it  that  makes  South  Wales  the  industrial  storm-centre 
of  Great  Britain  and  why  is  it  a  fruitful  ground  for  food  agitation 
and  peace  propaganda  ?  The  answer  is  simple.  Subject  a  fiery 
and  educated  people  to  a  soulless,  dehumanized,  commercial  machine 
for  the  extraction  of  gold  out  of  labour,  and  you  will  inevitably 
breed  a  seething  discontent  which  must  somewhere  find  its  outlet. 

Their  fieriness  is  sufficiently  known,  but  the  Celtic  temperament 
alone  does  not  explain  their  violence  of  action.  To  it  is  added  a 
degree  of  education  which  would  astonish  some  of  their  absentee 
employers.  There  are  scores  of  men  working  in  the  Welsh  pits 
who  could  pass  an  examination  in  Ibsen  or  Shaw  or  Swinburne,  or 
could  hold  their  own  in  an  argument  on  economics  or  politics  with 
the  average  member  of  Parliament.  They  owe  their  training,  not 
to  the  state  or  to  the  municipalities,  but  to  the  educational  faciUties 
provided  by  the  Independent  Labour  Party  and  other  organizations. 
In  the  current  number  of  the  "  Merth}^:  Pioneer,"  which  may  be 
regarded  as  the  organ  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party  movement 
in  South  Wales,  appears  a  column  and  a  half  article,  one  of  a  series, 
on  industrial  history,  dealing  with  the  earUest  written  records  of 
British  history  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  worker,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  article  is  a  reference  to  the  works  which  bear  on  the  subject. 
For  years  past  free  evening  classes  in  economics,  industrial  history, 
and  similar  subjects  have  been  held  in  I.L.P.  branch-rooms  in  the 
various  mining  centres,  and  many  of  the  younger  members  have 
taken  full  advantage  of  them. 

There  is  another  educational  movement  which  has  its  centre  in 
Rhondda,  and  which  is  carried  on  mainly  by  past  students  of  the 
Central  Labour  College.  This  institution,  it  may  be  remembered, 
was  established  as  the  result  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  curriculum 
of  Ruskin  College,  Oxford.  From  Oxford  it  was  transferred  to 
Earl's  Court,  London,  and  thence  it  has  spread  the  doctrine  of  class 


APPENDIX  293 

war  far  and  wide.  Recently  it  came  under  the  joint  control  of  the 
South  Wales  Miners'  Federation  and  the  National  Union  of  Railway- 
men,  and  special  efforts  are  now  being  made  to  extend  its  work 
throughout  this  district,  chiefly  by  lectures  in  the  workmen's  insti- 
tutes and  co-operative  societies'  rooms. 

A  third  educational  agency  is  an  organization  called  the  Plebs 
League,  which  aims  at  the  education  of  the  workers  by  means  of 
classes  in  sociology,  industrial  history,  Marxian  economics,  and  so 
on.  Not  only  do  hundreds  of  young  miners  absorb  this  teaching, 
but  many  of  them  are  sent  by  their  lodges  to  the  Central  Labour 
College,  London,  and  come  back  to  preach  what  they  have  learned 
— mainly  as  a  gospel  of  open  hostility  to  the  employers  and  constant 
agitation  for  the  complete  extraction  of  their  profits. 

The  Central  Labour  College,  described  above,  is  an  institu- 
tion in  the  west  of  London,  one  of  the  promoters  of  which 
has  been  Mrs.  Bridges  Adams.  Mrs.  Adams  is  an  inter- 
national Socialist.  She  and  others  founded  Bebel  House 
in  London,  which  was  to  be  one  of  the  headquarters  of  the 
international  socialist  movement.  Then  came  the  war,  and 
Bebel  House  was  used  by  the  refugee  Russians  as  a  head- 
quarters. The  police  raided  it  during  one  of  their  official 
campaigns  against  Russian  political  refugees.  Mrs.  Adams 
has  waged  a  continuous  fight  against  the  English  ofiicial 
betrayal  of  the  right  of  asylum.  I  give  a  full  account  of  the 
matter  in  the  chapter  entitled  "  The  Right  of  Asylum."  The 
point  is  of  interest  here  as  showing  how  various  expressions 
of  radicalism  interlock.  The  woman  who  has  helped  the 
miners  of  South  Wales  to  fashion  the  weapons  of  their  powerful 
syndicalist  movement  is  the  person  who  has  defended  an 
ancient  English  liberty. 

Mrs.  Adams  beUeves  that  little  trust  can  be  put  in  labour 
leaders.  They  grow  official,  tame,  and  compromising,  and 
lose  responsiveness  to  the  aspirations  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 
She  believes  that  only  by  diffused  intelligence  will  the  labour 
movement  prosper,  and  not  through  individual  men  becoming 
under-secretaries,  pension  ministers,  and  ministers  of  labour. 
And  this  distrust  of  labour  leaders  she  extends  to  university 
movements  for  "  the  education  of  the  workers."  She  fears 
that  they  will  make  the  social  movement  "  upper  class,"  and 


294  APPENDIX 

the  education  itself  a  desiccated,  carefully  edited,  non-explosive 
brand.  So  Mrs.  Adams  and  others  have  conducted  the 
Central  Labour  College  as  an  institution  growing  out  of  the 
people  themselves  rather  than  something  given  them  from 
above.  Step  by  step  with  the  growth  of  her  institution  and 
other  democratic  agencies  of  education  the  Welsh  miners 
have  rai"=;ed  their  standard  of  living  and  strengthened  their 
position  in  the  community,  till  to-day  they  are  a  force  so 
formidable  that  the  Government  capitulated  on  their  latest 
threat  to  strike,  and  enforced  a  wage  increase.  They  are 
probably  the  most  radical  labour  group  iij  Great  Britain. 

I  am  simply  trying  to  tell  of  social  movements  as  they 
operate,  not  to  pass  judgment  on  their  comparative  merit. 
The  claims  of  the  Central  Labour  College  will  be  weighed  by 
the  careful  investigator  with  those  of  the  Workers'  Educa- 
tional Association,  which  an  increasing  number  of  workers 
regard  as  the  most  promising  educational  movement  ever 
carried  on  by  the  mass-people  and  the  intellectuals  in  co- 
operation. The  W.E.A.  has  university-led  tutorial  classes 
in  history,  literature,  and  economics,  about  twelve  thousand 
members,  and  a  realized  programme  of  educating  the  workers 
inside  their  class  so  that  they  can  use  their  powers  to  lift 
all  their  fellow-workers  with  themselves. 

The  impulse  in  the  working  class  educational  movement 
was  once  expressed  by  Philip  Snowden  thus  : — 

"  I  would  rather  have  better  education  given  to  the  masses  of 
the  working  classes  than  the  best  for  a  few*  *  O  God,  make  no 
more  giants  ;  elevate  the  race.'  " 

At  an  Oxford  Conference  ten  years  ago  it  was  expressed 
by  J.  M.  Mactavish,  a  dockyard  worker  at  Portsmouth,  thus  : — 

"  I  am  not  here  as  a  suppliant  for  my  class.  I  decline  to  sit  at 
the  rich  man's  gate  praying  for  crumbs.  I  claim  for  my  class  all 
the  best  of  all  that  Oxford  has  to  give.  I  claim  it  as  a  right — 
wrongfully  withheld — wrong  not  only  to  us  but  to  Oxford.  What 
is  the  true  function  of  a  University  ?  Is  it  to  train  the  nation's 
best  men,  or  to  sell  its  gifts  to  the  rich  ?  Instead  of  recruiting  her 
students  from  the  widest  possible  area,  she  has  restricted  her  area 


APPENDIX  295 

of  selection  to  the  fortunate  few.  They  come  to  her  not  for  intel- 
lectual training,  but  for  veneering.  Not  only  are  workpeople 
deprived  of  the  right  to  access  to  that  which  belongs  to  no  class  or 
caste,  the  accumulated  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  race,  but 
Oxford  herself  misses  her  true  mission,  while  the  nation  and  the 
race  lose  the  services  of  its  best  men.  I  emphasize  the  point 
because  I  wish  it  to  be  remembered  that  workpeople  could  do  far 
more  for  Oxford,  than  Oxford  can  do  for  the  workpeople.  For, 
remember,  democracy  will  realize  itself,  with  or  without  the  assist- 
ance of  Oxford  ;  but  if  Oxford  continues  to  stand  apart  from  the 
workpeople,  then  she  will  ultimately  be  remembered,  not  for  what 
she  is  but  for  what  she  has  been. 

"  We  want  from  Oxford  a  new  science  of  national  and  international 
economics — a  science  that  will  teach  us  the  true  relationship  between 
production  and  consumption  ;  that  will  teach  us  the  true  economic 
relationship  in  which  men  ought  to  stand  to  men,  and  men  to  women 
— a  science  based,  not  on  the  acquisitiveness  of  the  individual,  but 
on  social  utility.  Even  as  much  do  we  want  from  her  a  new  inter- 
pretation of  history— not  one  that  will  continuously  remind  us  that 
we  are  on  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  but  one  that  will  inspire  us  ;  not  the 
short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor,  but  the  history  of  the  people." 

Early  in  the  present  year,  J.  Fothergill,  a  working  man 
member  of  the  Workers'  Educational  Association,  replied  as 
follows  to  an  appeal  for  religious  instruction  : — 

"  In  my  own  little  way  I  seem  to  distinguish  between  education 
and  training.  Training  seems  to  me  to  be  a  sort  of  drilling  or  com- 
pelling of  the  individual  to  do  a  certain  thing  more  or  less  perfectly 
after  a  certain  amount  of  repetition.  But  education  seems  to  me 
to  be  rather  more  than  this,  it  is  a  development  of  the  faculties  which 
will  enable  me  to  sift  facts  and  weigh  evidence,  but  not  to  arrive 
at  any  particular  conclusion.  Or,  in  other  words,  in  a  homely  way 
I  might  try  to  make  it  more  clear  by  explaining  that  education  does 
not  show  me  the  road  through  life  so  much  as  it  enables  me  to  find 
a  way  for  myself.  Therefore,  I  submit  that  Mr.  Temple  is  wrong 
in  postulating  that  schemes  of  education  ought  to  be  religious  or 
otherwise,  although  he  might  be  justified  in  asserting  that  a  training 
college  should  be  so.  I  am  extremely  anxious  that  I  should  not 
be  considered  in  any  way  disrespectful,  but  I  desire  to  take  exception 
to  the  way  that  Mr.  Temple  uses  such  terms  as  Beauty,  Goodness, 
and  Truth.  He  seems  to  assume  that  these  terms  are  objective  and 
distinct  when  in  truth  they  are  purely  relative.  Beauty  varies  con- 
siderably amongst  us,  even  at  times  with  the  same  individual.  A 
tiger  might  be  admired  in  a  cage,  but  how  ugly  he  would  be  to  a 


296  APPENDIX 

victim.  Goodness  also  is  certainly  relative.  How  good  it  is  to  Idll 
our  enemies,  and  it  is  a  sad  reflection  that  states  could  not  exist 
•without  such  apparently  paradoxical  conceptions.  And  what  is 
truth  ?  How  difficult  to  answer,  although  so  easy  to  question.  Mr. 
Temple  complains  that  the  Englishman  does  not  care  for  truth,  and 
further  complains  that  it  is  only  v/hat  he  thinks  is  true,  irrespective 
of  whether  it  is  in  accordance  with  '  the  truth  '  or  not.  Again,  the 
question  looms  up,  '  What  is  truth  ?  '  It  is  very  easy  to  claim  to 
have  the  truth,  and  that  other  people  have  it  not,  but  it  is  another 
matter  to  prove  or  disprove,  as  the  case  might  be.  Is  it  not  a  fact 
that  all  our  truth  is  what  we  think  is  true,  and  that  Mr.  Temple  is 
really  in  the  same  boat  as  the  Englishman.  Mr.  Temple  dreams 
and  hopes  that  all  Christians  might  be  united.  Let  us  hope  that 
no  such  agreement  will  ever  be  arrived  at,  because,  in  my  opinion, 
education  would  become  a  thing  of  the  past.  Humanity  would 
then  be  surrounded  by  the  dread  portals  of  authority.  The  free 
play  of  knowledge  would  cease,  and  science  could  not  hope  to 
improve  upon  a  scheme  of  things  which  catered  for  humanity  for 
eternity.  From  my  lowly  station  I  would  admonish  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Temple  to  keep  his  ideas  on  this  matter  for  the  pulpit,  where  they 
rightly  belong.  When  he  takes  his  part  in  the  open  life,  let  him  use 
his  great  powers  in  assisting  the  working  classes  to  develop  them- 
selves in  order  to  choose  intelligently  among  the  maze  of  theories 
in  the  world.  I  would  further  submit  that  the  theory  of  religion 
is  not  sufficiently  capable  of  proof  to  justify  its  being  included  in 
any  curriculum.  It  is  rather  a  personal  matter,  and  perhaps  the 
central  dogma  of  reUgion — that  a  good  kind  Father  overrules  all — 
will  be  best  rebutted  by  a  contemplation  of  the  common  facts  of 
life :  the  present  carnage  caused  by  the  war,  which  would  surely  be 
stayed  by  any  well  meaning  being  possessing  the  power,  and  a  con- 
templation of  life  as  we  experience  it  from  day  to  day,  how  life  lives 
upon  life,  and  as  it  is  tersely  put  by  Herbert  Spencer,  '  that  the 
Carnivore  might  live  the  Herbivore  must  die.'  " 

The  desire  of  the  worker  to  be  left  free  to  think  for  himself  through 
democratic  education  has  been  commented  on  in  a  recent  Govern- 
ment enquiry. 

The  Commission  of  Enquiry  into  Industrial  Unrest,  reporting 
for  Wales,  states  : — 

"  The  sense  of  antagonism  between  Capital  and  Labour  has  been 
considerably  deepened  during  recent  years  by  the  propaganda  of  a 
small  but  earnest  group  of  men  whose  teachings  are  rapidly  per- 
meating the  entire  trade  union  movement.  Advanced  causes 
feed  on  discontent,  and  the  indisposition  of  employers  to  concede 


APPENDIX  297 

the  claims  of  the  workers  to  a  higher  standard  of  Hfe  has  provided 
fuel  for  the  propaganda  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party  and, 
more  recently,  of  the  enthusiasts  of  the  Central  Labour  College 
movement.  The  influence  of  the  "  advanced  "  men  is  growing 
very  rapidly,  and  there  is  ground  for  belief  that  under  their  leader- 
ship attempts  of  a  drastic  character  will  be  made  by  the  working 
classes  as  a  whole  to  secure  direct  control  by  themselves  of  their 
particular  industries. 

"  The  leading  spirits  in  the  trade  unions  have  of  late  years  been 
devoting  themselves  to  an  active  if  restricted  form  of  educational 
propaganda.  The  working-man,  it  is  held,  must  organize  his  own 
education,  train  his  own  teachers,  and  work  steadily  for  reform 
within  his  own  union.  Thus,  to-day,  the  South  Wales  Miners' 
Federation  and  the  National  Union  of  Railway  men  have  jointly 
assumed  financial  responsibility  for  a  working-man's  college  (the 
Central  Labour  College)  where  the  workers  may  be  taught  the 
social  sciences  free  from  the  bias  and  prejudice  of  the  upper-class 
conception  of  history  and  economics.  In  March,  191 7,  the  College 
conducted  41  classes,  of  which  19  were  in  South  Wales,  8  being  in  the 
Rhondda.  The  number  of  students  at  that  time  in  South  Wales 
would  not  be  less  than  500.  Since  March,  191 7,  however,  the 
number  of  the  classes  has  largely  increased,  and  steps  have  been 
taken  to  organize  classes  in  almost  every  district  of  the  South 
Wales  Federation.  The  subjects  taken  are  almost  invariably  con- 
fined tol_Economics,  Industrial  History,  and  the  Modern  Working- 
class  Movement." 

The  new  Minister  of  Education  has  offered  the  country 
certain  proposals  which,  if  enacted,  will  lay  the  foundation 
for  democratic  education.     He  wishes  : — 

1.  Better  administrative  organization  for  education. 

2.  Elementary  schooling  with  no  exceptions  up  to  the  age  of  14. 

3.  Part-time  day  continuation  schools. 

4.  Development  of  the  higher  forms  of  elementary  education. 

5.  Improvement  of  the  physical  condition  of  children  under 
instruction. 

6.  Consohdation  of  the  elementary  school  grants. 

7.  A  survey  of  the  educational  field. 

8.  Closer  relationship  between  private  educational  institutions 
and  the  national  educational  system. 

LAND 
The  Duke  of  Sutherland  has  decided  to  sell  his  Shropshire 
seat,  Lilleshall,  an  estate  of  7,500  acres. 


298  APPENDIX 

In  a  letter  to  the  tenants  the  Duke  writes  : 

I  have  hoped  against  hope  that  I  might  not  be  forced  to  part 
with  what  remains  of  the  Lilleshall  Estate,  but  the  burden  of  taxa- 
tion, which  I  think  is  heaviest  on  a  landlord  whose  patrimony 
consists  mainly  of  large  landed  properties,  and  particularly  the  very 
heavy  death  duties  consequent  on  the  death  of  my  father,  have 
compelled  me  to  take  this  step.  The  prospect  of  a  severance  from 
the  property  and  old  association,  which  have  become  so  dear  to  me, 
is  a  bitter  one. 

The  war  has  delayed  much  good  reform  which  was  briskly 
on  its  way.  A  long  campaign  to  bring  man  and  land  together 
was  about  to  end  in  remedial  legislation.  Now  these  reforms 
have  been  postponed  till  peace  comes.  But  legislation  will 
be  introduced  after  the  close  of  the  war  to  bring  labour  back 
to  the  land,  and  to  bring  the  land  back  from  grass.  The 
famous  "  New  Doomsday,"  inquiry  showed  that  slightly  more 
than  2,000  persons  owned  half  the  agricultural  land  of  the 
country. 

While  that  investigation  was  being  made  the  agricultural  labourers 
were  struggling  to  combine  for  higher  wages,  and  their  union  was 
shortly  afterwards  crushed  by  farmers,  clergy,  and  landowners. 
As  yet  little  has  been  done  to  efface  the  deep  impress  made  alike 
upon  the  land  system  and  the  workers  on  the  land  by  two  hundred 
years  of  rule  by  the  British  landed  aristocracy. 

Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  agricultural  land  of  England  and 
Wales  is  worked  by  tenants  and  not  by  owners.  The  net  agri- 
cultural output  of  England  and  Wales  is  about  $650,000,000 
a  year.    The  land  is  under-cultivated. 

The  Government  appointed  the  Land  Inquiry  Committee 
to  find  out  why.  Their  report  was  brought  in  only  a  few 
months  before  the  war.  The  changes  they  advocate  were 
thus  postponed. 

The  Committee  found  that  one  reason  of  under-cultivation 
is  the  insecurity  of  tenure  of  the  farmer.  The  growing  fre- 
quency of  sales  of  agricultural  estates,  with  notices  to  quit, 
or  a  higher  rent,  has  led  to  this  insecurity  of  the  small  holder. 
This  insecurity  of  tenure  prevents  the  tenant  from  making 
improvements.     He    deserves    compensation    for    increased 


APPENDIX  299 

fertility  due  to  continuous  good  farming.  Instead,  he  often  is 
shackled  with  a  higher  rent  for  his  own  improvements,  and 
under  the  present  system  of  taxation  these  improvements  are 
rated  and  therefore  penaUsed. 

Another  reason  is  labour.  Bad  farming  and  low  wages 
together  have  driven  many  of  the  best  men  to  the  towns. 
Those  who  remain  as  labourers  are  underpaid. 

A  large  amount  of  land  is  withheld  from  its  best  use  for 
the  purpose  of  sport,  and  a  considerable  amount  more  is 
under-cultivated  and  in  some  cases  under-rented  owing  to 
game  preservation.  This  land,  instead  of  providing  food 
for  the  people,  provides  sport  and  delicacies  for  the  few. 
Between  1881  and  1901  the  number  of  game-keepers  increased 
from  12,633  to  16,677,  while  during  the  same  period  there 
was  a  large  decline  in  the  rural  population.  There  are 
instances  of  agricultural  land,  formerly  rated  at  20  shillings 
or  more  an  acre,  turned  into  plantation,  and  then  rated  at 
one  shilling  an  acre,  including  the  sporting  right.  In  such 
cases  the  law  has  put  a  premium  upon  misusing  the  land. 
Reforms  are  necessary  in  taxation  and  rating  of  this  land 
used  for  sport. 

Other  reasons  for  under-cultivation  follow :  Land  lies 
waste.  The  farmer  cannot  obtain  adequate  capital  nor 
facile  credit.  Better  transit  by  light  railways,  waterways, 
etc.,  is  needed.  Co-operation  is  still  imperfectly  practised. 
Scientific  education  is  required.  Much  of  the  land  must  be 
split  into  small  holdings.  Too  much  land  is  in  pasture  instead 
of  tillage.  Even  in  dairy  farming,  "  more  cows  could  be 
maintained,  and,  if  they  are  properly  managed,  more  profit 
obtained,  on  an  arable  farm  than  on  a  grass  farm."  The 
"  Nation,"  has  reduced  the  total  area  in  England  and  Wales 
under  crops  and  grass  to  the  scale  of  48  acres,  and,  according 
to  the  latest  agricultural  returns,  shown  its  division.  Twenty- 
nine  acres  are  in  permanent  grass,  five  acres  clover  and  rotation 
grasses,  14  acres  arable. 

The  Government  Committee  came  to  this  revolutionary 
conclusion : 


300  APPENDIX 

The  ownership  of  land  is  of  the  nature  of  a  monopoly,  and  the 
legal  power  which  a  landowner  has  over  his  tenant,  tempered 
though  it  be  in  many  cases  by  goodwill  and  kindly  personal  relation- 
ship, is  detrimental  to  the  best  national  interests.  .  .  .  England 
has  become,  more  than  any  other  European  nation,  a  country  of 
farms  of  over  50  acres  as  opposed  to  Small  Holdings.  Nearly 
7,000,000  acres  are  in  the  hands  of  large  farmers  who  hold  more 
than  300  acres,  while  only  4,000,000  are  in  holdings  between  5  and 
50,  and  only  285,000  acres  are  in  holdings  between  i  and  5  acres. 

Small  holdings  are  one  of  the  remedies.  English  experience 
shows  conclusively,  according  to  these  Government  investi- 
gaters,  that  small  holders  would  rather  rent  than  purchase. 
Their  report  is  unfavourable  to  state-aided  purchase.  They 
found  that  the  desire  to  purchase  is  not  for  any  abstract  joy 
of  ownership,  but  almost  universally  for  the  factor  of  obtaining 
security  of  tenure.  An  inquiry  was  made  among  farmers. 
Eighty  per  cent,  stated  that  they  wished  security  of  tenure, 
only  7I  per  cent,  said  that  their  real  object  was  the  satisfaction 
of  ownership.  So  the  remedy  proposed  is  to  create  security 
of  tenure,  rather  than  peasant  proprietorship.  It  should  be 
said  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  of  public  opinion  on  this 
point  of  small  rented  holding  versus  peasant  proprietorship. 
The  Committee  sees  that  one  of  the  fundamentals  in  the  matter 
is  that  the  man  with  only  a  small  capital  needs  a  good  return 
on  his  money.  Land  as  an  investment  pays  back  only  about 
3|-  per  cent.  This  is  too  small  a  return  for  the  farmer.  He 
will  do  better  to  rent  his  holding,  and  invest  his  money  in 
seed,  fertilizer,  and  machinery.  Land  is  more  costly  than 
its  agricultural  value  warrants  because  there  is  a  demand 
for  it  for  social  and  sporting  purposes. 

The  Committee  urges  that  Land  Courts  shall  be  established 
in  England  and  Wales  with  powers  to  grant  security  of  tenure 
subject  to  good  farming,  to  fix  fair  rents,  to  decide  questions 
of  compensations,  and  to  fix  the  price  payable  upoij  compulsory 
acquisition  of  land  by  public  bodies.  The  existence  of  this 
Land  Court  will  hasten  the  acquisition  of  land  by  public 
bodies  for  small  holdings 

Ordinary  agricultural  labourers  in  England  make  an  average 


APPENDIX  301 

around  $4.20  a  week.  There  is  little  opposition  to  the  proposal 
that  a  legal  minimum  wage  shall  be  established  for  them  by 
a  wage  tribunal.  This  wage  must  be  such  as  will  enable  the 
labourer  to  live  in  a  state  of  physical  efficiency  and  to  pay  a 
commercial  rent  for  his  cottage.  The  Government  minimum 
wage  of  25  shillings  is  a  step  but  not  a  solution. 

His  bad  condition  is  partly  due  to  bad  housing.  The 
number  of  cottages  for  the  working  class  in  the  rural  districts 
of  England  and  Wales  is  about  1,200,000.  One  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  new  cottages  are  needed,  especially 
cottages  with  three  bedrooms.  By  "  bad  housing  in  rural 
district^  thousands  of  children  and  adults  are  dying  or  being 
permanently  injured  in  health  every  year.  ...  It  should  be 
made  a  definite  statutory  duty  of  every  Rural  District  Council 
to  provide  a  cottage  for  every  person  permanently  employed 
in  a  rural  district." 

By  thus  increasing  the  independence  of  the  labourer,  he 
will  be  in  a  position  to  take  advantage  of  the  existent  Small 
Holdings  and  Allotments  Act.  This,  combined  with  better 
machinery,  through  Parish  Councils  and  Government  officials, 
will  secure  the  use  of  a  small  piece  of  land  for  every  dweller 
in  the  countryside.  In  that  way  the  ladder  is  built  by  which 
he  rises  from  a  landless  underpaid  wage-slave  to  a  free  house- 
holder with  access  to  the  land. 

It  is  further  advocated  that  the  Crown  Land  Commissioners 
purchase  large  arrears  of  land  in  different  parts  of  the  country 
for  the  purpose  of  extending  their  policy  of  creating  small 
holdings. 

Who  is  to  pay  for  the  minimum  wage  of  labour  and  the 
reduced  rent  of  small  holdings  ?  The  landlord,  not  the  farmer 
The  legislation  for  a  minimum  wage  is  to  provide  that  the 
farmer  who  pays  it  and  who  is  able  to  prove  that  the  rise  in 
wages  has  put  upon  him  an  increased  burden  shall  have  the 
right  to  apply  to  the  Land  Court  for  a  re-adjustment  of  his 
rent.  And  that  rent,  in  any  case,  is  to  be  a  fair  rent  and  not 
a  competitive  rent. 

"  A  competitive  rent  is  the  sum  which  one  farmer,  competing 


302  APPENDIX 

with  other  farmers,  will  pay  for  land  rather  than  go  Without 
it.  A  fair'  rent  is  the  surplus  which  in  a  normal  season  will 
remain  over  from  the  produce  of  the  land  if  worked  by  a  farmer 
of  average  ability,  after  providing  for  all  necessary  outgoings, 
including  a  fair  wage  to  the  labourer,  and  after  allowing  to 
the  farmer  a  reasonable  remuneration . " 

In  these  ways,  bad  housing,  over-crowding,  malnutrition, 
tuberculosis  will  be  done  away  with  in  the  life  of  the  labourer, 
and  the  land  itself  freed  for  community  service.  In  the  reform 
two  points  of  view  will  be  kept  in  mind — "  The  social  point 
of  view,  which  looks  on  the  health  and  housing  of  the  labourer 
and  the  poorer  villager ;  the  economic  point  of  view,  which 
treats  agriculture  as  an  industry  that  must  be  run  at  a 
profit." 

It  is  historically  just  that  the  landowner  shall  stand  a 
portion  of  the  burden  of  reform.  Dr.  Gilbert  Slater  has 
outlined  the  process  by  which  the  self-respecting  English 
peasantry  were  forced  off  the  land.  By  rack  rents  (an 
economic  rent  based  on  rising  values,  as  distinguished  from 
the  customary  rent),  by  a  system  of  fines,  the  landlords  appro- 
priated to  themselves  the  whole  of  the  new  profits  of  changed 
conditions  through  world  commerce.  The  tenants  resigned 
their  holdings  into  the  hands  of  the  landlord.  The  arable 
land  was  turned  into  sheep  farms,  evictions  were  widely  made, 
and  a  thriving  village  would  be  replaced  by  "  ruined  cottages, 
and  rough  grass  nibbled  by  flocks,  running,  we  are  told,  in 
some  cases  to  as  many  as  24,000  sheep,  tended  by  a  few  shep- 
herds and  their  dogs.  This  was  the  great  enclosure  movement 
of  the  sixteenth  century." 

Enclosure  was  not  the  turning  of  waste  lands  into  cultivated 
fields,  but  the  conversion  of  arable  fields  into  desolate 
sheep  walks. 

"  Early  in.  the  eighteenth  century  began  the  series  of  private 
acts  of  enclosure,  of  which  4,000  in  all,  covering  7,000,000 
acres,  were  passed  before  the  General  Enclosure  Act  of  1845. 
During  the  same  period  it  is  probable  that  about  the  same 
area  was  enclosed  without  application  to  Parliament.  .  .  , 


APPENDIX  303 

In  a  proportion  of  cases,  the  principal  landowner  effected 
enclosure  by  first  of  all  making  himself  the  sole  proprietor." 
Enclosure  meant  throwing  open  fields  together  and  building 
a  hedge  around  the  total.  In  this  way  the  small  owners 
were  got  rid  of.  "  The  majority  of  the  small  tenant-farmers 
had  to  choose  between  emigrating  elsewhere  or  becoming 
landless  labourers.  .  .  .  Henceforward  there  was  a  gulf 
between  the  labourer  and  the  farmer." 

INDUSTRY  AND  THE  STATE 

A  Royal  Charter  has  been  granted  to  the  official  members 
of  the  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  for  Scientific  and  In- 
dustrial Research  under  the  title  of  "  The  Imperial  Trust 
for  the  Encouragement  of  Scientific  and  Industrial  Research." 
Its  expenditure  will  be  employed  in  research  done  in  con- 
junction with  trade  associations,  using  the  results  for  the 
benefit  of  the  trade  in  general.  The  Government  has  already 
given  their  assistance  in  the  manufacture  of  dye  stuffs.  Stand- 
ing committees  have  been  formed  in  Engineering,  Mining  and 
Metallurgy.  This  whole  new  relationship  of  the  State  to 
industry  will  be  in  part  dependent  for  its  success  on  continua- 
tion schools. 

MACHINERY 

The  first  attempt^ to  treat  comprehensively  the  new 
machinery  and  buildings  created  by  war  needs  has  been  made 
by  the  annual  "  Engineering  Supplement  "  of  "  The  Times." 
What  is  to  be  done  with  this  new  plant  ?  has  been  the  question 
asked  by  many,  and  answered  by  none.  Mr.  Hodge,  the 
Minister  of  Labour,  says  :  "I  don't  care  whether  it  is  by 
tariffs,  by  prohibition,  by  bounty,  or  any  other  method,  the 
plant  in  our  country  must  be  utiUzed."  Private  plants, 
numbering  four  thousand  seven  hundred,  have  greatly 
expanded.  There  are  over  ninety-five  new  national  factories. 
The  "  Engmeering  Supplement  "  quotes  one  firm  as  prophesy- 
ing "  a  reduction  in  the  proportion  of  three  machines  to  one 


304  APPENDIX 

available  for  the  future  use."  A  firm  of  marine  engineers 
says  that  sixty  per  cent,  of  the  new  machined  will  have  to 
be  scrapped,  because  the  tools  are  over-driven  and  worn  out. 
But  even  these  estimates  leave  from  twenty-five  to  forty  per 
cent,  of  the  new  machinery  available,  and  this  is  an  enormous 
expansion  in  productive  capacity.  Thus  in  one  year  arma- 
ment firms  introduced  twenty-five  hundred  new  machine 
tools.  The  large  majority  of  engineering  firms  agree  that  these 
works,  with  their  new  machinery,  will  be  used  for  the  inten- 
sive manufacture  of  standardized  articles.  The  assem- 
bling of  parts  at  these  central  plants  has  established  manu- 
facturing practice  in  the  use  of  gauges,  and  created  the  condi- 
tions for  standard  and  interchangeable  manufacture.  As 
one  firm  writes  : 

"  In  small  tools — twist  drills  and  milling  cutters — we  believe  that 
by  standardization  and  judicious  publicity  we  may  fill  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  business  held  formerly  by  Germany  and  the  United 
States." 

One  hundred  thousand  gauges  have  been  made  in  the  tech- 
nical institutes  in  the  last  eighteen  months.  The  gauge  stand- 
ardizes the  engineering  industry,  and  enables  it  to  produce  on 
a  vast  scale  a  great  variety  of  manufactured  articles.  Stand- 
ardization is  essential  to  low-cost  manufacture  and  large  out- 
put, and  the  establishment  of  standard  is  dependent  on  the 
accuracy  of  gauges,  defining  specified  dimensions  of  absolute 
magnitude,  and  limiting  permissible  variation. 

A  professional  engineer  writes  { 

Our  locomotives  differ  only  in  relatively  small  details,  excepting 
valve-gears.  The  main  sizes  of  cylinders,  piston-rods,  connecting- 
rods,  side-rods,  crank  axles  differ  only  very  slightly  in  the  same 
class  of  engines.  .  .  .  Hundreds  of  various  forms  of  12  in.  by  20  in. 
horizontal  engines  exist,  differing  only  in  a  very  small  degree  in  the 
actual  details  that  count  in  actual  wear  and  tear  and  the  life  of  the 
engine.  Could  not  all  these  details  be  agreed  and  standardized  ? 
If  a  few  more  usual  types  of  engines — marine,  steam-rollers,  etc. — 
were  standardized,  quite  a  number  of  bur  present  munition  factories 
could  be  engaged  in  manufacturing  connecting-rods  and  side- 
rods  only,  others  the  cylinders  and  pistons,  others  the  valve-gears. 


APPENDIX  305 

etc. ;  and  in  busy  areas,  without  much  carting,  whole  engines  could 
thus  be  assembled  in  special  shops  dealing  with  special  engines,  to 
the  great  gain  of  our  home,  colonial,  and  foreign  customers.  A 
similar  course  is  demanded  very  specially  for  electrical  machinery, 
fittings,  and  telephones. 

The  munition  factories  could  further  be  used  to  great  advantage 
in  fostering  and  nursing  the  British  production  of  agricultural 
machinery,  at  present  sadly  behindhand,  and  manufacturing  it  as 
standard  repetition  work.  They  would  also  be  suitable  for  making 
improved  machine  tools,  as  well  as  mining  tools,  such  as  rock-drills, 
etc. ;  and  standard  ships  would  be  greatly  improved  if  fitted  not 
only  with  the  standard  engines  already  mentioned,  but  also  standard 
winches,  pumps,  steering-gear,  refrigerating-apparatus,  etc. 

The  output  in  the  engineering  trade  can  be  increased  at 
least  twenty-five  per  cent.,  even  with  the  machinery  that 
existed  before  the  war,  and  with  the  new  machinery  that 
percentage  will  go  considerably  higher. 

EMPIRE    RESOURCES 

I  have  to  limit  myself  to  a  sentence  for  programmes  of 
reconstruction,  each  of  which  would  require  a  volume  for 
adequate  summary.  The  linking  up  of  the  resources  of  the 
empire  is  a  vast  scheme,  with  a  committee  already  at  work 
upon  it.  The  Empire  Resources  Development  Committee  has 
been  formed  to  open  up  new  sources  of  revenue  by  develop-' 
ing  the  empire  through  state  aid  to  private  enterprise  : — 
selected  resources,  assets  ripe  for  development.  Land, 
palm-oil  products,  fisheries  are  among  its  immediate  agenda. 
Land  will  be  sold  or  leased,  and  it  will  also  be  used  as  an 
instrument  of  production,  for  stock-raising,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  plantations.  Water-supplies,  railways,  harbours, 
grain-elevators,  and  factories  are  all  envisaged  in  the 
scheme.  The  development  board  is  to  be  constituted  of  cap- 
tains of  industry.  Among  the  men  backing  the  plan  are 
Rudyard  Kipling,  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  Dunraven,  Grey, 
Selborne,  Desborough,  and  Sir  Starr  Jameson. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  empire  to  pay  off  its  enormous 
war  debt  under  the  existing  system  of  taxation.  Demo- 
cratic finance  has  to  strike  out  new  ideas,  and  this  is  one 
U 


3o6  APPENDIX 

of  them  :  to  make  use  of  the  "  j&nest  undeveloped  estate 
which  has  ever  been  known  in  the  history  of  the  world," 
and  to  develop  these  latent  resources  of  the  empire  by  a 
centralized  semi-state  board,  making  use  of  the  services  of 
experts.  This  organization  \vill  thus  be  a  commercial  f)ion- 
eer,  supplying  capital  and  knowledge,  control  and  organ- 
ization, to  the  scattered  pockets  and  pools  and  paying  veins 
of  the  ungarnered  wealth  of  a  quarter  of  the  earth. 

Alfred  Bigland,  who  has  had  forty  years  of  experience 
in  the  importation  of  raw  materials,  says  of  the  plan  : 

Some  time  ago  the  Minister  of  Munitions  asked  me  to  take  charge 
of  all  oils  that  contained  glycerine  and  he  pointed  out  the  Govern- 
ment controlled  the  whole  of  the  whale  fishing  in  the  Antarctic 
Ocean.  By  giving  licences  to  the  men  to  fish  in  these  waters  on 
condition  that  the  oil  was  retained  for  this  country  we  have  received 
during  the  war  660,000  barrels  of  this  oil.  It  was  a  revelation  that 
we  had  such  a  supply,  and  while  the  Germans  were  paying,  for  little 
lots,  ;^30o  a  ton  for  such  oil,  we  are  buying  it  for  the  Government  at 
^38  a  ton. 

In  the  Pacific  Ocean,  bordering  on  British  Columbia ;  in  the 
mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ;  and  the  waters  around  Newfoundland 
and  Labrador,  apart  from  our  own  home  waters — under  an  Empire 
monopoly  {though  we  must  have  the  consent  of  the  dominions  in 
this  matter),  we  could  become  the  purveyors  of  fish  in  all  forms, 
almost  to  the  whole  world.  Already  Newfoundland  was  sending 
on  an  average  300,000  tons  of  cod  to  the  Mediterranean  and  neutral 
countries.  There  was  practically  no  limit  to  the  quantity,  and  the 
Grand  Trunk  Pacific  had  already  offered  refrigerating  plant  to  bring 
fish  from  Prince  Rupert  Island  to  Liverpool  at  a  penny  a  ton,  which 
would  be  reduced  to  three  farthings  or  a  halfpenny  on  big  Govern- 
ment contracts  being  entered  into.  This  development  could  take 
place  immediately.  The  necessary  shipbuilding  and  equipment 
must  take  time,  but  after  the  war — if  the  Government  allowed  it — 
the  whole  of  the  vessels  now  used  in  the  North  Sea  for  mine  sweeping 
and  other  purposes  would  form  the  nucleus  of  an  Empire  fishing 
fteet.  The  quantity  of  fish  consumed  in  this  country  was  600,000 
tons  a  year,  which  was  equal  to  one-fortieth  of  the  total  food  con- 
sumed per  head  of  the  population,  and  the  scheme  might  increase 
the  fish  supply  to  at  least  four  times  that  quantity. 

It  will  take  ten  years  to  develop  the  ideas  the  committee  wish 
to  carry  out.  It  must  be  apparent  to  every  one  that  no  private 
individual  could  accomplish  such  a  great  work  in  the  way  that  an 


APPENDIX  307 

Empire  Council  could  do.  There  was  the  objection  that  it  would  be 
Socialistic  for  the  State  to  carry  on  such  a  business  ;  but  the  com- 
mittee would  begin  where  vested  interests  were  the  least  in  force — 
except  as  regarded  the  fishermen  engaged  in  the  business — and 
that  was  in  the  bed  of  the  ocean.  All  on  board  the  fishing  vessels, 
from  the  captain  to  the  lowest  man,  should  participate  in  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  catches.  If  the  State  secured  a  penny  a  pound,  which 
was  ;^9  6s.  a  ton,  it  would  be  quite  possible  to  make  a  gross  profit  in 
10  years  of  ;^36,ooo,ooo,  out  of  which  the  sinking  fund  for  the 
development  charges  must  be  met.  It  would  be  for  the  State  to 
regulate  the  prices  in  every  town  in  the  country ;  and  the  State 
should  have  the  control  of  the  home  fisheries  as  well. 

Sir  William  Lever  has  stated  that  an  expenditure  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  bringing  two  hundred  acres  of  cocoa- 
nut-palms  to  maturity  may  be  estimated  to  give  an  income 
of  ten  thousand  dollars  an  acre  in  about  ten  years.  So  it 
will  be  an  immense  source  of  income  for  the  state  to 
develop  the  vast  imperial  holdings  of  palm-lands,  which 
probably  amount  to  several  million  acres. 

This  programme  is  now  undergoing  the  raking  fire  of 
nearly  all  the  liberal  and  radical  papers,  including  the 
"  Nation,"  the  "  Manchester  Guardian,"  the  "  Labour  Leader  " 
and  the  "  Herald."  They  believe  that  the  scheme  means  the 
ruthless  exploitation  of  native  workers. 

Whatever  comes  of  this  particular  programme,  it  is  now 
certain  that  the  British  Commonwealth  will  explore,  analyze, 
and  organize  its  incalculable  resources. 
.  There  is  a  committee  on  the  growth  of  cotton  in  the  Empire  : 
"  to  investigate  the  best  means  of  developing  the  growing  of 
cotton  within  the  Empire  and  to  advise  the  Government  as 
to  the  necessary  measures  to  be  taken  for  this  purpose  "  (in 
the  words  of  Sir  A.  Stanley,  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade). 

There  is  a  committee  for  preparing  a  scheme  for  the 
establishment  in  London  of  an  Imperial  Mineral  Resources 
Bureau  (by  direction  of  the  War  Cabinet).  The  purpose 
will  be — 

(a)  To  collect  information  in  regard  to  the  mineral  resources  and 
metal  requirements  of  the  Empire,  and 


3o8  APPENDIX 

(b)  To  advise  what  action,  if  any,  may  appear  to  enable  such 
resources  to  be  developed  and  made  available  to  meet  require- 
ments. 

The  action  of  the  War  Cabinet  in  appointing  this  Imperial 
Mineral  Resources  Committee  is  the  result  of  a  resolution  pass- 
ed by  the  Imperial  War  Conference.      The  resolution  read  : — 

That  it  is  desirable  to  establish  in  London  an  Imperial  Mineral 
Resources  Bureau,  upon  which  should  be  represented  Great  Britain, 
the  Dominions,  India,  and  other  parts  of  the  Empire. 

The  Bureau  should  be  charged  with  the  duties  of  collection  of 
information  from  the  appropriate  Departments  of  the  Governments 
concerned  and  other  sources  regarding  the  mineral  resources  and 
the  metal  requirements  of  the  Empire,  and  of  advising  from  time 
to  time  what  action,  if  any,  may  appear  desirable  to  enable  such 
resources  to  be  developed  and  made  available  to  meet  the  metal 
requirements  of  the  Empire. 

That  the  Conference  recommends  that  his  Majesty's  Government 
should,  while  having  due  regard  to  existing  institutions,  take 
immediate  action  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  such  a  bureau,  and 
should  as  soon  as  possible  submit  a  scheme  for  the  consideration  of 
the  other  Governments  summoned  to  the  Conference. 

WHO    DOES    THE   WORK? 

The  question  has  been  often  asked.  How  has  it  been  pos- 
sible to  take  out  five  million  men  and  still  carry  on  the  pro- 
ductive industries  of  Great  Britain  ? 

The  clearest  shortest  answer  to  this  has  been  given  by 
Sir  Leo  Chiozza  Money  in  the  "  Daily  Express  "  ; 

(i)  The  men  remaining  have,  as  a  whole,  produced  more  than  in 
peace. 

(2)  There  has  been  a  better  organization  of  production  in  some 
trades,  notably  the  engineering  trades. 

(3)  Large  amounts  of  new  capital  have  been  applied  by  the 
Government  to  many  important  industries. 

(4)  There  has  been  a  removal  of  restrictions  upon  output. 

(5)  Many  women  have  taken  up  productive  work  for  the  first  time. 

(6)  There  has  been  a  great  contraction  of  the  vast  amount  of 
male  labour  normally  employed  upon  non-productive  and  unecon- 
omic work;  in  some  cases  the  unnecessary  work  has  disappeared 
altogether  ;  in  others  it  has  been  taken  up  and  is  now  performed  by 
women  or  girls. 


APPENDIX  309 


He  goes  on  to  say  :] 


Before  the  wax  a  very  large  proportion  of  our  male  workers  were 
engaged  in  non-productive  work.  All  our  mines,  quarries,  mills, 
factories,  and  workshops  employed  only  4^  million  men.  But  our 
male  population  aged  eighteen  years  and  upwards  numbered  thirteen 
millions.  Therefore  it  was  true  that  OF  OUR  MALE  POPULA- 
TION AGED  EIGHTEEN  YEARS  AND  OVER  ONLY  ABOUT 
ONE  IN  THREE  WAS  ENGAGED  DIRECTLY  IN  PRODUCING 
INDUSTRIAL  WEALTH. 

What  were  all  the  rest  doing  ?  Distribution,  education.  Govern- 
ment service,  commerce,  etc.,  are  all  important,  but  can  it  be  pos- 
sible that  two  out  of  three  males — to  say  nothing  of  females — 
were  needed  to  carry  them  on,  as  compared  with  only  one  in  three 
devoted  to  producing  things  ?  Most  certainly  the  devotion  of  so 
large  a  proportion  of  males  to  non-productive  tasks  was  not  only 
unnecessary,  but  a  sign  and  a  portent  of  industrial  decadence. 

The  taking  of  men  from  non-productive  employments  has  enabled 
women  very  easily  to  make  substitution  in  many  cases.  A  woman 
works  the  lift  which  before  the  war  was  worked  by  an  able-bodied 
man,  doing  work  which  no  able-bodied  man  should  ever-  do.  The 
laundry  van,  which  before  the  war  was  driven  by  an  able-bodied 
man,  is  now  driven  by  a  girl.  You  go  to  the  bank  and  see  capable 
young  women  dealing  with  the  books  and  papers  which  yesterday 
were  supposed  to  demand  the  services  of  stalwart  young  men. 

At  the  insurance  offices,  which  before  the  war  employed  a  great 
army  of  young  men,  girls  find  no  difficulty  in  accomplishing  the  work. 
At  the  offices  of  the  National  Health  Insurance  Commissioners 
the  work  is  being  done  by  girls  quite  as  well  as  by  the  battaUon  or 
so  of  men  who  recently  were  thought  to  be  needed  for  it.  In  tens 
of  thousands  of  commercial.  Government,  and  local  government 
offices  female  labour  is  doing  what  the  other  year  was  thought  to  be 
men's  work. 

The  idea,  therefore,  that  because  a  man  was  a  petty  clerk,  or 
a  shop  assistant,  or  a  lift-man,  or  a  driver,  or  a  door-opener,  or  a 
tout,  or  a  commission  agent,  or  something  of  that  sort,  before  the 
war,  he  must  necessarily  go  back  to  his  old  job,  while  the  woman 
who  has  taken  his  job  is  to  return  to  her  old  work,  is  entirely  mis- 
taken. 

Organize  our  power  supply ;  reform  our  railway  system ;  set  to 
work  on  a  decent  canal  system  ;  determine  production  in  the  metal 
trades  and  the  chemical  trades ;  enlarge  our  wheat  area  definitely 
and  compulsorily.  Do  these  things,  and  there  will  be  such  a  call 
for  labour  in  connection  with  them,  and  in  connection  with  other 
useful  employments  arising  from  them,  that  in  peace  as  in  war,  we 


310  APPENDIX 

shall  find  that  the  difficulty  is  not  to  find  jobs  for  the  men,  but  to 
find  men  for  the  jobs. 

COMPULSORY    DEMOCRACY 
Mr.  Balfour  has  stated  the  present  concentration  of  effort 
in  clear  terms  : 

All  we  can  do  for  the  war  is  to  produce  men  to  fight,  men  and 
women  to  work  at  warlike  munitions,  men  and  women  to  work  at 
those  commodities  that  we  can  export  and  with  which  we  can  buy 
abroad  other  munitions  of  war.  If  you  divert  by  your  expenditure 
national  energies  into  wrong  channels,  by  so  much  you  are  diverting 
resources  on  which  we  depend  for  finishing  the  war  and  ending  it 
with  a  successful  peace. 

Let  us  transpose  that  into  its  equivalent  for  normal  life. 

All  we  can  do  for  the  welfare  of  the  community  is  to  produce 
happy  and  healthy  persons  to  live  a  creative  life,  men  and  women 
to  work  at  productive  industries,  men  and  women  to  work  at  those 
commodities  that  we  can  export  and  with  which  we  can  buy  abroad 
other  products  for  the  creation  of  a  life  of  reasonable  satisfaction. 
If,  by  your  expenditure  on  personal  luxury  or  by  your  investment 
of  capital  on  non-productive  trades,  you  divert  national  energies 
into  wrong  channels,  by  so  much  you  are  diverting  resources  on 
which  we  depend  for  establishing  a  high  standard  of  living  for  the 
community,  and  so  finishing  the  labour  war  and  ending  it  with  a 
successful  peace. 

The  principal  of  organization  and  concentration,  backed 
by  compulsion,  in  the  interests  of  the  community  has  for 
the  first  time  in  English  history  been  widely  applied.  Once 
applied,  it  becomes  permanent,  and  is  subject  to  extension. 
The  compulsion  has  been  used  to  force  men  to  go  and  die. 
It  has  been  used  to  make  them  work  at  certain  jobs  at  a 
fixed  rate  of  pay  and  to  give  up  other  jobs.  But  it  has  not 
been  used,  except  in  "  controlled"  firms  and  in  a  limited  way, 
to  take  control  of  profits,  and  it  has  not  been  used  to  force 
capital  to  invest  in  one  enterprise  and  not  in  another.  A 
man's  life  is  not  his  own,  his  power  of  work  is  not  his  own  ; 
but  his  money,  if  he  is  wealthy,  is  his  own.  He  can  invest 
it  in  making  absinthe  ;  he  can  lend  it  to  an  exploiter  of  African 
labour ;   he  can  create  an  anti-social  industry  with  it.     One 


APPENDIX  311 

needs  only  to  state  it  for  its  absurdity  to  be  seen.  Capital 
will  be  increasingly  governed  as  labour  is  already  governed. 
When  political  democracy  was  formed,  it  was  inevitable 
that  industrial  democracy  would  result,  however  tardily. 
So  it  is  with  any  partial  application  of  a  principle.  Once 
it  begins  to  operate,  it  gradually  extends  itself  over  the  full 
area  of  its  function.  The  principle  of  compulsion,  applied 
to  the  life  and  labour  of  men,  will  a  little  later  reach  property, 
that  last  sacred  stronghold  of  privilege 

These  changes  are  more  searching  than  the  direct  changes 
by  death  and  wastage  of  the  war,  but  it  is  the  war  that  has 
hastened  them.  "  The  success  of  this  revolution  was  chiefly 
due  to  the  wisdom  of  those  who  allowed  it  to  develop  grad- 
ually and  almost  imperceptibly  from  existing  institutions." 

CO-OPERATION,    SOCIALISM,    SYNDICALISM 

Private  capitalism,  in  its  old  terms  of  unchecked  profit- 
eering and  laissez-faire  exploitation,  has  already  been  scrap- 
ped as  a  method  of  organizing  industry.  Individualism, 
with  its  instinct  for  property,  will  of  course  survive  in  many 
forms.  Thus  in  agriculture  we  are  to-day  seeing  a  powerful 
movement  towards  the  private  holding  of  property,  and 
that  property,  instead  of  being  held  in  a  few  hands,  will 
be  widely  distributed.  The  restoration  of  peasant-land 
proprietorship  in  Ireland  is  an  instance.  The  movement 
toward  tenant  holdings  in  England  and  Wales  is  another 
instance. 

But  industrial  England  is  looking  to  other  solutions  than 
individualism  for  the  mass  of  her  workers,  and  has  already 
put  those  solutions  into  partial  operation,  One  of  those 
solutions  is  democratic  control  of  industry  by  the  workers. 
That  means  precisely  that  associations  of  producers  (trade- 
unions  and  guilds)  will  exercise  control  over  the  conditions 
of  their  work.  I  have  outlined  this  solution  in  the  chapter 
on  "  Workers*  Control."     It  is  the  solution  by  syndicalism. 

The  other  solution  is  the  control  of  industry  by  associations 


312  APPENDIX 

of  consumers.  Those  associations  are  voluntary,  as  in 
co-operation,  and  compulsory,  as  in  state  and  municipal 
ownership.  This  is  the  solution  by  co-operation  and  social- 
ism. There  is  no  difference  in  principle  between  co-operation 
and  socialism,  but  there  is  a  sharply  marked  difference  in 
the  area  of  the  application. 

Every  solution,  whether  by  association  of  producers  or  by 
association  of  consumers,  needs  the  check  and  balance  of 
the  other.  The  syndicalist  will  exploit  the  consumer  by  high 
prices  and  over-emphasis  on  the  social  value  of  his  own 
particular  trade.  The  co-operator  and  state  socialist  will 
exploit  the  worker  in  order  to  get  products  at  a  low  price, 
and  state  socialism  builds  a  powerful  bureaucracy  Of  expert 
officials,  who  form  an  oligarchy  inside  the  democracy.  The 
ineradicable  instinct  for  property  will  temper  both  move- 
ments, and  Parliament  will  remain  one  of  the  direct 
expressions  of  the  people's  wish  between  these  contending 
forces,  and  will  continue  to  act  as  a  corrective  of  modern 
government  which  is  government  by  Cabinet  and  committee, 
leaning  increasingly  toward  state  socialism.  In  short,  no 
one  movement  or  tendency  fully  expresses  democracy,  which 
must  use  each  in  carefully  controlled  degree.  The  method 
of  that  control  is  the  problem  of  the  future.  The  Cabinet 
and  bureaucracy  have  meanwhile  grown  strong,  and  Par- 
liament has  weakened.  In  the  future  no  one  tendency 
inside  the  social  movement  is  likely  to  be  the  Aaron's  rod 
and  swallow  up  the  contending  tendencies,  though  socialists, 
syndicalists,  and  co-operators  make  the  same  wholehearted 
claims  for  their  pet  solution  that  advocates  of  big  business, 
free  trade,  and  empire  development  make.  Out  of  all  these 
powerful  "  pushes"  will  come  a  resultant,  a  collision  into 
harmony,  which  will  be  the  new  order,  the  reconstructed 
community,  the  organized  state  under  democratic  control. 

A  figure  will  make  this  clear.  In  warfare  in  France  and 
Flanders  there  is  a  series  of  separate  spaces  that  can  be  made 
untenable  for  the  enemy.  There  are  the  differing  zones 
of  shrapnel  and  of  infantry  fire  and  a  space  between  them. 


APPENDIX  313 

and  that  space  belongs  to  the  machine-gun.  There  is  a 
similar  division  of  effective  function  in  the  attack  on  the 
capitalistic  system.  There  is  an  area  that  the  municipal 
and  governmental  control  of  industry  does  not  reach,  and  a 
portion  (not  the  whole)  of  that  area  is  reached  by  the  co- 
operative movement.  There  is  a  further  area  reached  by 
syndicalism.  In  the  near  future  at  least  there  will  be  left 
much  "  dead  ground"  of  which  private  enterprise  will  still 
alone  have  the  range. 

Thus  in  the  most  careful  study  ever  made  of  the 
co-operative  movement,  the  report  of  the  committee  of  the 
Fabian  Research  Department,  the  possible  extent  of  the 
annual  trade  of  the  movement  is  put  at  "  something  like  four, 
to  five  hundred  millions  sterling,  being  only  one-fifth  of 
the  total  national  production."  Also,  co-operation  "  offers 
in  itself  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  complete  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  status  of  the  workers." 

And  so  with  the  limitations  of  public  ownership.  Some 
of  the  coming  trouble  will  be  a  fight  of  syndicahsm  against 
state  socialism.  The  state,  as  manager  of  industry  and 
employer  of  labour,  operating  through  its  bureaucracy  of 
experts,  will  issue  orders  to  its  employees.  They  will  claim 
the  right  to  strike.  Will  they  then  be  "  called  to  the 
colours,"  as  was  done  in  the  French  syndicalist  strike  ?  Will 
the  troops  be  ordered  out  against  them,  as  is  done  in 
Colorado,  Illinois,  and  Pennsylvania  ?  Is  the  right  to  strike  to 
be  taken  from  Government  employees  ?  If  so,  the  socialistic 
state  will  become  an  oligarchy  of  expert  officials  possess- 
ing a  tyrannical  power.  It  will  cease  to  be  under  democratic 
control.  For  the  socialistic  state  is  not  the  consummation 
of  democracy  ;  it  is  only  one  expression  of  democracy.  And 
syndicalism  is  another  expression.  To  no  one  expression 
can  the  full  power  be  safely  handed  over. 

What  has  co-operation  in  Great  Britain  done  after  seventy 
years  of  experience  ?  It  has  established  and  has  running 
at  the  present  time  fifteen  distributive  stores,  with  three 
million    members,    controlling   sales  to   the   value  of    four 


314  APPENDIX 

hundred  million  dollars  a  year,  and  producing  goods  to  the 
value  of  seventy  million  dollars  a  year.  The  research  com- 
mittee summarizes  the  service  of  co-operation.  It  has 
afforded  in  manufacturing  and  in  wholesale  and  retail  trad- 
ing an  alternative  of  working-class  origin  to  the  capitalist 
system.  Manual  workers  have  proved  themselves  capable 
of  administering  it  under  democratic  control.  It  has  steadily 
grown  for  seventy  years.  It  has  kept  down  retail  prices, 
distributed  millions  of  dollars  as  dividend  on  purchases, 
money  that  would  have  gone  to  the  capitalist  class.  By 
co-operation  the  manual  workers  are  receiving  a  training 
in  the  administering  of  self-governing  industrial  republics. 
Co-operation  within  its  own  area  has  done  away  with  that 
speciaUzed  brain  power  known  as  directive  control,  which  con- 
sists in  cunning  for  the  defeat  of  rivals,  under-cutting,  nibbling 
at  wages,  adulteration,  cornering  the  market,  promotion, 
stock-exchange  gambling.  A  tendency  in  co-operation, 
as  in  socialism,  is  to  put  administration  into  the  hands  of 
salaried  officials.  Thus  the  English  Co-operative  Whole- 
sale Society  has  twenty-one  thousand  paid  employees,  directed 
by  a  salaried  committee  of  thirty -two  members. 

The  business  of  co-operation  is  not  likely  to  go  far  beyond 
the  articles  consumed  by  that  portion  of  the  wage-earning 
class  enjoying  fairly  regular  employment  and  wages,  to- 
gether with  the  "  black  coated  proletariat " — clerks,  petty 
officials,  and  the  like.  The  submerged  tenth  are  unable  to  avail 
themselves  of  co-operation,  and  the  one-eighth  or  one-tenth 
of  the  population  known  as  the  middle  and  upper  classes  do  not 
care  to  avail  themselves  of  it.  But  it  is  those  other  classes, 
from  unskilled  labourer  to  minor  professionals,  with  incomes 
from  $250  to  $2000  a  year,  who  are  increasing  in  numbers 
and  importance,  and  who  are  entering  into  control  of  the  new 
social  order.  Co-operation  as  an  association  of  consumers 
will  probably  not  touch  the  greater  part  of  agriculture,  the 
greater  part  of  manufacture  for  foreign  consumption,  the 
industries  providing  material  and  plants  for  other  industries, 
and    those    industries,   like    the   post-office    and   the   rail- 


APPENDIX  ^    315 

way  system,  in  which  the  day-by-day  consumers  do  not 
constitute  a  suitable  unit  of  administration,  or  in  which 
administration  by  the  compulsory  machinery  of  national  or 
municipal  government  is  required.  Accordingly,  four-fifths 
of  national  production  will  remain  outside  the  reach  of 
co-operative  organization.  Co-operation  is  not  an  alter- 
native to  the  capitalist  system  for  a  majority  of  manual 
workers.     It  is  an  alternative  for  a  minority, 

What  has  socialism  done  ?  The  summary  was  given  by 
the  Fabian  Research  Committee^  in  the  late  spring  of  191 5. 
Government  has  already  become  socialistic.  It  has  out- 
grown its  police  power  alone  and  has  become  an  administra- 
tion of  public  services — ^housekeeping  on  a  national  scale. 
How  are  we  to  know  the  difference  between  governmental 
and  capitalist  enterprise  ?  The  test  of  whether  adminis- 
tration in  a  given  department  and  area  is  socialistic  is  whether 
any  excess  of  receipts  over  cost  of  working  goes  not  to  the 
profit  of  the  administrators  or  of  any  private  owner  or  share- 
holders, but  to  public  purposes.  Down  to  a  century  ago 
government  concerned  itself  with  provision  for  religious 
rites,  external  defence,  police,  the  administration  of  justice, 
and  the  maintenance  of  prisons,  poor  relief,  regulation, 
inspection,  audit,  and  taxation.  Since  then  government  has 
entered  many  fields. 

It  has  entered  the  domain  of  communication  and  trans- 
port, transmitting  communications,  conveying  persons,  and 
transporting  commodities.  This  industry  employs  at  least 
one-tenth  of  all  the  working  population,  and  absorbs  an 
expenditure  of  two  hundred  million  pounds  a  year.  This 
largest  of  all  industries  in  its  three  functions  is  passing 
increasingly  throughout  the  civilized  world  into  governmental 
organization.  Thus  the  inland  conveyance  of  letters  by 
private  enterprise  is  to-day  left  to  countries  like  Abyssinia, 
Afghanistan,  and  Arabia. 

The  construction  and  maintenance  of  roads  is  virtually 
nowhere  a  service  of  private  capitalism.  The  United  Kingdom 
is  now  spending  yearly  nearly  one  hundred  million  dollars 


3i6  APPENDIX 

on  thoroughfares,  with  approximately  ioo,ooo  men  constantly 
employed. 

Local  authorities  in  Great  Britain  in  1913  were  opera- 
ting 171  tramways  as  against  one  in  188 1.  In  191 3  the 
municipal  capital  in  tramways  was   $275,000,000. 

In  waterways,  embanking,  lighting,  watching,  ports,  the 
docks  and  quays  are  nearly  everywhere  provided  and  main- 
tained by  Government.  The  capital  outlay  in  Great  Britain 
is  over  five  hundred  million  dollars. 

Of  the  total  railway  mileage  of  the  world,  just  about  half 
is  owned  and  worked  entirely  by  Government  enterprise. 
The  railways  of  Great  Britain  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
private  capital,  but  during  the  war  the  Government  has 
controlled  them,  and  there  is  a  powerful  movement  toward 
nationalizing  them.  This  movement  resulted  a  few  weeks 
ago  in  nationalizing  the  railways  of  Ireland. 

In  public  health  and  sanitary  work  we  see  in  local-govern- 
ment water  undertakings  of  Great  Britain  twenty  thousand 
men  employed,  and  a  thousand  million  dollars  administered 
in  premises,  plant,  and  machinery. 

The  removal  of  house  refuse,  city  drainage,  and  street 
sweeping  are  increasingly  governmental  services. 

Public  baths,  public  laundries,  and  swimming-pools  repre- 
sent a  municipal  investment  in  Great  Britain  of  twenty-five 
million  dollars. 

State  medical  service  is  steadily  spreading ;  doctoring  for 
the  destitute,  governmental  insurance  systems,  public  med- 
ical service  in  university,  hospitals,  asylums,  schools, 
prisons,  health  departments,  workhouses,  army,  navy,  pohce, 
post-office.  Nurses,  chemists,  and  doctors  are  rapidly 
becoming  the  officers  of  the  community.  Where  already  per- 
haps one  hundred  thousand  of  them  are  in  public  institu- 
tions and  Government  departments  the  rest  will  shortly  be. 

In  land  improvement  there  are  already  over  three  hundred 
local  commissioners  of  sewers,  spending  about  two  and  a 
half  million  dollars  a  year.  Several  million  doUars  a  year 
are  spent  in  India  in  new  irrigation  canals,  in  improving 


APPENDIX  317 

the  network  of  water-channels,  in  banking  river  channels. 
At  this  moment  Ireland  requires  an  expenditure  of  a  few 
million  dollars  to  drain  her  bogs,  set  her  river-levels,  and 
estabUsh  an  irrigation  system. 

Public  education,  recreation,  parks,  libraries,  music,  dances, 
piers,  museums,  art  galleries.  Government  books  and 
other  printed  matter,  are  all  employing  men  and  women 
and  absorbing  capital.  The  printing  bill  of  the  British 
Government  alone  is  over  five  million  dollars  a  year. 

Banking  facilities  are  passing  under  governmental  con- 
trol. Metallic  coinage  and  the  issue  of  paper  money  are 
state  services.  British  post-office  savings-bank  deposits  and 
trustee  savings-bank  deposits  amount  to  twelve  hundred 
and  fifty  million  dollars.  The  British  Government  lends 
money  to  land-owners,  local  authorities,  public-utility  societies 
for  agriculture  improvements,  drainage,  and  housing,  and 
to  the  householder  wishing  to  purchase  his  own  home. 
In  the  purchase  and  sale  of  securities  for  customers  the  Post- 
master-General of  Great  Britain  does  a  business  of  millions  a 
year.  In  1915  the  British  Government  took  under  its  control 
the  investment  of  capital.  In  1914  the  Bank  of  England, 
as  the  agent  of  the  British  Government,  purchased  over 
five  hundred  million  dollars  of  bills  of  exchange. 

In  light,  heat,  and  power  the  same  tendency  toward  state 
and  municipal  ownership  is  at  work.  Over  three  hundred 
gas  undertakings  in  Great  Britain  are  municipal,  and  the 
capital  is  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  million  dollars.  The 
Widnes  town  council  claimed  four  years  ago  that  at  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-four  cents  per  thousand  cubic  feet  it  was 
supplying  gas,  with  a  profit,  cheaper  than  any  other  gas 
plant,  governmental  or  capitalist,  in  the  world.  Nearly 
three  hundred  cities  and  towns  in  Great  Britain  are  now 
supplied  with  light,  heat,  and  power  by  the  municipal  elec- 
trical department,  representing  an  investment  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  million  dollars,  annual  gross  receipts  of  over  twenty 
millions,  and  employing  about  twenty  thousand  persons. 

Government    has    gone    in    for    housing,    building    farm- 


3i8  APPENDIX 

labourers'  cottages  in  Ireland,  municipal  lodging-houses  in 
Great  Britain,  tenement  blocks  in  London  and  Liverpool, 
and  developing  suburbs.  As  I  show  in  the  report  of  the  Land 
Inquiry  committee,  there  is  beginning  a  vast  extension  of 
governmental  rural  cottage  building,  which  will  provide 
120,000  new  dwellings  or  ten  per  cent,  of  the  present 
number. 

One-sixth  of  British  India  is  forest  reserve,  a  tract  of 
240,000  square  miles,  administered  by  the  Government  of 
India  for  the  public  benefit,  producing  a  net  revenue  of  ten 
million  dollars  a  year.  English  municipalities  are  beginning 
to  afiorest  their  water-catchment  areas. 

The  largest  farmer  in  the  United  Kingdom  is  the  Irish 
Government,  where  the  congested  districts  board  has  33,000 
rent-paying  tenants  and  an  average  of  a  quarter  of  a  million 
acres  under  its  administration  for  stock  and  sale  of  produce. 

The  mines  in  the  United  Kingdom  have  been  under 
private  ownership.  But  the  Government  recently  took  over 
the  coal  mines  in  South  Wales,  and  this  is  probably  the  first 
step  in  the  nationalization  of  most  of  the  fields.  Ireland's 
prosperity  will  leap  up  if  her  coal-deposits  are  freed. 

There  are  many  Government  enterprises  in  manufacturing 
industry,  producing  the  articles  required  for  public  use,  instead 
of  purchasing  them  to  the  profit  of  private  concerns.  The 
municipality,  with  its  tramway  service,  erects  its  own  works 
and  car-sheds,  generates  its  electricity,  builds  and  repairs  its 
cars,  prints  its  tickets.  In  England  the  post-ofiice  gets  the 
bulk  of  its  mail-sacks  made  by  the  prison  department. 

At  this  writing  the  British  Government  is  considering 
taking  over  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  liquor,  which  will 
make  it  one  of  the  greatest  shopkeepers  in  the  world. 

In  the  face  of  this  summary  of  the  research  committee, 
it  is  theoretic  to  debate  about  the  principle  of  socialism 
versus  private  capitalism.  The  tendency  toward  public 
ownership  is  under  full  swing,  and  no  phrases  can  stop  it. 
The  committee  quotes  what  a  secretary  for  the  coloniesp, 
Lewis  Harcourt,  said  j 


APPENDIX  319 

In  these  days,  the  Colonial  Office  has  more  the  attributes  of  an 
immense  trading  and  administrative  concern  than  those  of  earlier 
days,  when  it  was  a  mere  machine  of  Government.  I  am  a  coal 
and  tin  miner  in  Nigeria,  a  gold  miner  in  Guiana.  I  seek  timber 
in  one  colony,  oil  and  nuts  in  another,  cocoa  in  a  third — copra  and 
copal,  sisal  and  hemp,  cotton,  coffee,  tobacco  are  common  objects 
of  my  daily  care.  .  .  .  My  days  and  nights  are  spent  in  the  study  of 
medicine,  in  the  details  of  railway  construction,  with  a  desire  that 
the  smallest  sum  of  money  may  lay  the  largest  number  of  miles  of 
track  in  the  fewest  possible  days. 

Six  years  ago  the  census  showed  in  Government  employ  in 
England  and  Wales  788,550  persons,  299,599  in  state  de- 
partments and  588,951  under  local  authorities.  It  is  rea- 
sonable to  estimate  that  in  the  United  Kingdom  over  one 
million  are  now  in  public  employment.  The  Socialist  or 
Labour  parties  cannot  fully  claim  this  Government  action  as 
the  result  of  their  propaganda.  The  bulk  of  this  socialist 
enterprise  has  been  initiated  and  carried  out  by  persons  of 
the  aristocratic  or  propertied  classes,  by  business  men  and 
experts,  and  middle-class  residents.  Men  like  Joseph 
Chamberlain  were  not  "out"  to  introduce  the  co-operative 
commonwealth, -though  unconsciously  they  have  hastened  its 
coming.  The  reasons  that  have  directly  led  to  this  spread  of 
socialism  show  that  the  consideration  in  the  creators  of  tHe 
policy  was  the  interest  of  the  community  as  a  whole  and  the 
interest  of  the  citizens  as  consumers.  The  test  of  the  policy 
is  not  by  theory,  but  by  practice  and  experience. 

In  four  great  fields  both  socialism  and  co-operation  are 
as  yet  largely  leaving  the  field  to  private  capital.  Those 
j&elds  are :  the  special  service  of  the  idle  rich,  much  of 
international  trade  and  its  finance,  the  unorganized  portion 
of  the  shipping  industry,  and  a  large  part  of  agriculture  and 
fishing.  And  yet  even  in  agriculture  the  coming  legislation 
is  leaning  heavily  toward  what  is  virtually  state  control ; 
and  in  fishing  the  Empire  Resources  Development  committee 
are  putting  through  a  programme  which  is  socialistic. 

State  and  municipal  ownership  and  management  now 
administer    in    the    United    Kingdom    seventy-five   hundred 


320  APPENDIX 

million  dollars  of  capital.  The  capital  thus  administered 
and  the  volume  of  business  thus  done  is  probably  a  hundred 
times  as  great  as  that  of  co-operation,  and  is  increasing  with 
giant  strides.  This  state  and  municipal  socialism  is  most 
successful  in  communication  and  transport,  land  improvement, 
sanitation,  and  public  health  service,  education  and  recreation, 
extraction  of  coal  and  other  minerals,  banking  and  insurance, 
manufacture  and  distribution  of  certain  commodities,  and 
the  construction  and  preparation  of  articles  required  in  the 
public  service. 

The  enterprises  of  co-operation  and  of  state  and  munici- 
pal socialism  hardly  ever  compete  with  one  another  because 
their  spheres  are  distinct.  The  co-operative  society  pro- 
duces and  distributes  mainly  ordinary  household  supplies. 
Socialism  has  devoted  itself  to  commodities  and  services 
unsuited  to  co-operation.  This  division  of  function  will 
undoubtedly  long  continue. 

The  more  the  Government  engages  in  industrial  functions  as 
contrasted  with  function's  merely  of  police  and  national 
defence,  the  more  essentially  democratic  does  its  administra- 
tion tend  to  become.  But  as  yet,  parallel  with  what  we 
have  seen  in  co-operation,  the  humbler  grades  of  employees 
in  state  and  municipal  service  have  as  little  influence  on  the 
management  of  their  department  and  are  as  much  governed 
from  above  as  if  they  were  in  capitalist  employment. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  comparison  with  joint-stock 
capitalism.  Government  management  of  industry  means 
ultimately  a  large  number  of  independent  employers  and 
an  increase  in  tocal  control.  And  this  because  in  practice 
there  is  a  rapid  growth  of  municipal  enterprises,  with  a 
multiplication  of  separate  employers.  Whereas  in  capitalist 
enterprise  there  is  the  supremacy  of  the  national  trust  and 
combine,  such  as  Lord  Rhondda's  in  South  Wales,  over 
private  industry,  thus  lessening  the  number  of  employers. 

The  extension  of  state  and  municipal  management  is 
rapidly  proceeding,  and  its  potential  area  of  control  is 
almost  illimitable.     In  these  next  years  if   those  industries 


APPENDIX  .      321 

and  services  already  governmentally  administered  in  one 
place  or  another  are  generally  brought  under  public 
administration,  the  aggregate  volume  of  state  and  municipal 
socialism  will  be  increased  probably  five-  or  six-fold.  Such 
an  increase,  without  adding  a  single  fresh  industry  or 
service  to  those  already  successfully  nationalized  or  munici- 
palized in  one  country  or  another,  will  probably  bring  into 
the  service  of  national  and  local  government  an  actual 
majority  of  the  adult  population.  With  co-operation 
developing  along  its  own  lines,  the  combination  of  socialism 
and  co-operation  will  mean  that  probably  three-fourths  of  all 
the  world's  industrial  capital  will  be  under  collective  or 
non-capitalistic  administration. 

Certain  activities  will  long  remain  outside  this  extension 
of  collective  enterprise  :  certain  branches  of  agriculture, 
art,  invention,  new  markets,  new  individual  enterprises. 
The  future  organization  -of  industry  and  the  state  will  there- 
fore include  more  than  one  form  of  control.  There  is  need 
to  secure  for  persons  employed  in  co-operation,  in  Govern- 
ment enterprise,  and  in  private  enterprise  some  real  control 
over  their  own  working  lives.  With  that  method  of  control 
I  have  dealt  in  the  chapter  on  "  The  discovery,"  There  is 
need,  also,  to  secure  for  the  users  and  consumers  of  par- 
ticular products  and  services  some  real  power  of  influencing 
their  production  otherwise  than  by  Parliament  and  the  town 
council. 

Such  are  the  conclusions  of  the  research  committee,  which 
I  have  reproduced  largely  in  their  own  words.  Out  of  it 
all  emerges  the  outline  of  the  coming  England,  of  socialism, 
co-operation,  syndicalism,  big  business,  private  property. 

AUDITING   WAGES    AND    PROFITS 

The  whole  wage  question  will  become  increasingly  a  matter 

for  expert   accountants.     This   will   mean   a   joint   audit   of 

costs,  presented   by  management  and  men,  and  determined 

by  the   state.     In  the  South  Wales   coal-fields  the   figures 

X 


322  APPENDIX 

as  presented  by  the  federation  executive,  after  the  cost 
of  standard  labour  and  stores  and  other  costs  of  production 
have  been  deducted,  show  : 

Period.                              Wages.  Profits, 

From  April,  1910,  to  June,  1915 67.00  (percent.)   9.67 

„      July,  1915,  to  June,  1916 61.79  „ 16.35 

Quarter  ended  June  30,  1916 56.46  ,,         24.05 

The  owners  reply  that  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  production 
has  kept  even  with  the  rise  in  the  selling  price.  They  instance 
the  prices  of  pit  wood,  rails,  and  colliery  stores,  in  addition 
to  a  succession  of  wage  increases. 

Obviously  this  is  not  a  question  for  frenzied  rhetoric, 
but  for  expert  analysis.  One  wonders  if,  as  we  approach 
the  minimum  wage  in  legislation,  we  are  approaching  the 
maximum  return  permitted  to  capital  in  public  services. 
To  make  this  clear  :  will  the  state  lay  down  a  minimum 
wage  of  thirty-six  shillings  for  the  worker,  and  a  prohibition 
for  absentee  capital  of  anything  over  ten  per  cent.  ? 

THE   TIE   VOTE 

The  present  proposals  for  workers'  control  through  work- 
shop councils  leave  the  final  vote  on  a  tie  with  the  man- 
agement. The  workers,  sitting  as  council  members  with 
the  managers  of  the  industry,  will  become  partners  instead 
of  wage  hands  in  the  business.  They  will  be  "  junior  part- 
ners" at  first.  The  extent  of  their  control  will  be  determined 
by  their  ability  and  their  self-conscious  power  as  a  class. 

HOUSING 

A  clear  summary  of  the  various  policies  for  Housing  Re- 
form has  been  given  by  Henry  R.  Aldridge,  secretary  of  the 
National  Housing  and  Town  Planning  Council,  in  a  paper 
called  "  Housing  after  the  War."     He  writes  ; 

"  The  Unionist  housing  policy  is  one  of  aid  to  local  authorities 
to  house  the  poorest  members  of  the  community  at  a  loss  and  to 
meet  the  deficit  in  the  finance  of  housing  schemes  by  State  grants. 


APPENDIX  323 

"  The  Liberal  housing  policy,  whilst  providing  for  the  giving  of 
general  grants  in  aid  of  housing  efforts  by  local  authorities,  has  as 
its  central  feature  the  raising  of  wages  in  order  to  secure  that  all 
classes  of  the  community  shall  be  enabled  to  have  decent  housing 
accommodation. 

"  The  members  of  the  Labour  Party,  with  that  close  and 
intimate  knowledge  which  they  possess  of  all  social  questions, 
have  adopted  a  line  of  policy  which  combines  both  these 
policies." 

The  Joint  Compiittee  on  Labour  Problems  after  the  War 
estimates  that  1,000,000  new  houses,  to  be  let  for  a  few 
shillings  a  week,  will  be  required  at  the  end  of  the  war.  It 
urges  the  Government  to  act  at  once  through  the  local 
authorities  with  the  aid  of  a  free  governmental  grant. 

In  the  city  of  Stanley,  England,  "  overcrowding  is  found 
to  exist  in  50  per  cent,  of  the  houses.  It  can  hardly  be  doub- 
ted that  the  existence  of  overcrowding  on  so  serious  a-  scale 
is  one  of  the  chief  factors  which  gives  rise  to  such  a  high 
infantile  mortality  as  is  found  in  Stanley,  namely  169  per 
one  thousand  births."  So  says  the  authoritative  invest- 
igation "  Livelihood  and  Poverty — A  study  of  Working 
Class  Households  in  Northampton,  Warrington,  Stanley, 
and  Reading"  (1915). 

And  it  goes  on  to  report : 

One-half  of  the  households  below  the  poverty  line  at  Warrington 
and  Reading,  nearly  one-half  at  York,  and  one-third  at  Northampton, 
were  Hving  in  poverty  because  the  wages  of  a  head  of  the  household 
were  so  low  that  he  could  not  support  a  family  of  three  children  or 
less.  A  great  part  of  the  poverty  revealed  by  our  inquiries  is  not 
intermittent  but  permanent,  not  accidental  or  due  to  exceptional 
misfortune,  but  a  regular  feature  of  the  industries  of  the  towns 
concerned.  Of  all  the  causes  of  primary  poverty  which  have  been 
brought  to  our  notice,  low  wages  are  by  far  the  most  important. 
To  raise  the  wages  of  the  worst  paid  workers  is  the  most  pressing 
social  task  with  which  the  country  is  confronted  to-day. 

In  Northampton  nearly  13  per  cent,  and  in  Reading  15  per  cent, 
earn  less  than  20  shilhngs.  In  four  out  of  five  of  the  towns,  more 
than  one  quarter,  and  in  two  out  of  five  towns,  more  than  one-third 
of  the  adult  male  workers  were  earning  less  than  24  shilhngs  per 
week. 


324  APPENDIX 

Sixty  years  ago,  the  population  of  England  and  Wales 
was  evenly  divided  between  town  and  country  dwellers  < 
Now  four  out  of  every  five  persons  are  living  in  the  towns, 
and  only  one  out  of  five  in  the  country.  Turning  to  rural 
conditions,  as  described  in  the  investigatoin  "  How  the  La- 
bourer Lives,"  we  find  : 

Seventy  per  cent,  of  the  agricultural  workers  in  England  and 
Wales  are  paid  labourers,  having  no  direct  financial  interest  in  the 
success  or  otherwise  of  the  work  in  which  they  are  engaged,  and 
only  30  per  cent,  farmers,  small  holders,  or  members  of  their  families. 
This  is  a  serious  fact,  for  probably  in  no  other  European  country  is 
there  so  high  a  proportion  of  agricultural  workers  who  are  "  divorced 
from  the  soil."  In  1907  the  weekly  earnings  of  ordinary  agricultural 
labourers  in  England  averaged  17  shillings  6  pence.  It  may  be 
taken  as  an  established  fact  that  a  family  of  five  persons  whose 
total  income  does  not  exceed  20  shillings  6  pence,  and  whose  rent 
is  two  shillings,  is  living  below  the  "  poverty  line."  If  we  now  turn 
to  the  actual  wages  of  ordinary  agricultural  labourers  we  find  that 
with  five  exceptions,  the  average  earnings  in  every  county  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  are  below  it.  The  real  wages  of  agricultural  labourers 
have  actually  diminished  since  1900. 

Let  the  reader  try  for  a  moment  to  realize  what  this  means.  It 
means  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  judicious  expenditure,  the  be- 
all  and  end-all  of  life  should  be  physical  efficiency.  It  means  that 
people  have  no  right  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  great  world  outside 
the  village  by  so  much  as  taking  in  a  weekly  newspaper.  It  means 
that  a  wise  mother,  when  she  is  tempted  to  buy  her  children  a  penny- 
worth of  ^heap  oranges,  will  devote  the  penny  to  flour  instead. 
It  means  that  the  temptation  to  take  the  shortest  railway  journey 
should  be  strongly  resisted.  It  seems  that  toys  and  dolls  and, 
picture  books,  even  of  the  cheapest  quality,  should  never  be  pur- 
chased;  that  birthdays  should  be  practically  indistinguishable 
from  other  days.  It  means  that  every  natural  longing  for  pleasure 
or  variety  should  be  ignored  or  set  aside.  It  means,  in  short,  a 
life  without  colour,  space,  or  atmosphere,  that  stifles  and  hems 
in  the  labourer's  soul  as  in  too^  many  cases  his  cottage  does  his 
body. 

The  motto  of  one  of  the  villagers  is  given  :  **  We  don't 
live,  we  linger."  And  yet,  with  these  appalling  conditions  of 
primary  poverty  in  city  and  country,  it  is  true  that  "  there 
has  been  an  enormous  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  the 


APPENDIX  325 

industrial  population  in  Britain  during  the  last  sixty  or 
seventy  years.  There  is  a  residuum  of  the  population  living 
on  the  margin  of  subsistence,  whose  lot  could  not  have  been 
much  worse  in  1830  than  it  is  now.  It  is  possible  that  the 
size  of  this  residuum  is  as  large,  or  even  larger,  now  than 
seventy  years  ago,  but  it  bears  a  smaller  proportion  to  the 
total  population." 

LIGHT  RAILWAYS 
Belgium  has  22.8  miles  of  light  railway  to  every  100  square 
miles  of  territory.  Great  Britain  has  .37  of  i  mile  to  every 
100  square  miles.  That  is,  Belgium  has  38J  times  as 
many  miles  of  light  railway  in  proportion  to  her  total 
area  as  Great  Britain.  This  means  not  only  more  agricul- 
turists, but  it  means  that  more  industrial  workers  can  and  do 
live  on  the  land,  instead  of  in  the  slums  of  cities.  Twenty- 
three  per  cent,  of  the  occupied  persons  in  Belgium  are  engaged 
in  agriculture,  but  56  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population  live 
in  rural  and  only  44  per  cent,  in  urban  communes.  "  Every- 
where in  travelling  through  Belgium  one  hears  of  tracts  of 
land  opened  up  to  profitable  agriculture  or  commerce  by 
means  of  the  light  railways."  The  extraordinary  develop- 
ment of  agriculture  is  to  no  small  extent  due  to  these 
facilities  for  the  transport  of  produce  in  bulk  and  in  small 
quantities.  A  thorough  study  of  this  system  of  light 
railways  has  been  made  by  Seebohm  Rowntree  in  "  Land 
and  Labour — Lessons  from  Belgium."  He  summarizes  a 
detailed  consideration  as  follows  ; 

In  comparison  with  her  size,  Belgium  has  the  most  extensive 
system  of  main  and  light  railways  and  canals  in  the  world.  Almost 
all  her  main  railways  are  national  property,  and  she  is  financing 
her  light  railways  so  cleverly  that  they  will  become  pubhc  property 
at  the  end  of  a  certain  number  of  years,  without  any  appreciable 
cost  to  the  pubhc  purse.  She  has  frankly  recognized  that  light 
railways  cannot  do  more  than  just  pay  their  way,  and  will  never 
show  so  high  a  return  upon  capital  as  to  induce  capitalists  to  choose 
them  in  preference  to  other  industrial  investments.  If  economically 
managed,  however,  they  can  be  run  practically  without  loss,  and 


326  APPENDIX 

they  are  of  inestimable  value  in  opening  up  country  districts  and 
developing  agriculture.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  small  holdings 
cannot  be  made  fully  successful  without  such  means  of  cheap  and 
rapid  transport  as  hght  railways  afford.  Canals,  which  are  almost 
all  national  property  in  Belgium,  are  looked  upon  as  high  roads, 
and  the  State  is  satisfied  if  the  very  low  charges  made  for  their  use 
cover,  or  almost  cover,  the  cost  of  upkeep.  The  very  low  rates 
charged  for  the  transport  of  goods  both  on  railways  and  canals 
are  a  great  benefit  to  industry  as  well  as  agriculture,  and  the  extra- 
ordinary cheapness  of  the  workmen's  tickets  upon  the  railways  has 
economic  effects  of  a  far-reaching  character — among  others  it 
facilitates  decentralization  of  population  and  industries,  and  thus 
largely  destroys  the  monopoly  of  landowners  in  towns. 

CHURCH    ATTENDANCE 

In  the  midweek  of  November,  1916,  this  advertisement 
appeared  in  the  **  Guardian"  ; 

The  LIVING  of  Catherston  Leweston,  near  Charmouth,  Dorset, 
is  VACANT.  The  adult  inhabitants  of  the  parish  are  22,  the  full 
value  of  the  living  1^$  ;  value  last  year  ^^67  17s.  Healthy,  southern 
locaUty,  near  the  sea.     No  rectory-house. 

A  few  years  ago  the  "  Daily  News  "  made  a  census  of 
London  churches.  At  that  time  the  number  of  City  churches 
connected  with  the  Established  Church  was  45.  The  attend- 
ances at  all  these  churches  on  Sunday  morning  was  4,634. 
At  St.  Alban's  there  were  13  persons  present,  of  whom  six 
were  children.  St.  Mildred's  had  14.  In  the  morning, 
St.  Alphege  had  37,  of  whom  21  were  children.  In  the 
evening,  37  came,  but  one  child  was  unable  to  come,  and 
an  additional  woman  attended,  and  saved  the  average.  Of 
the  total  45  churches,  eight  had  attendances  over  100  in  the 
morning. 

In  one  Nonconformist  Congregational  Church,  the  City 
Temple,  there  were  3,463  persons  in  the  congregation,  as  com- 
pared to  4,634  persons  in  all  the  45  churches  of  the  Established 
Church.  This  is  a  thoroughly  unfair  instance,  however, 
because  the  City  Temple  has  had  men  of  genius  in  its 
pulpit.    The  average  Nonconformist  Church,  like  the  average 


APPENDIX  327 

church  of  the  Establishment,  has  lost  much  of  its  old-time 
hold  on  the  people. 

MONEY    OR    EDUCATION 

The  labour  exchanges  are  constantly  thrown  against 
human  problems.  One  of  their  executives  told  me  of  being 
forced  to  decide  whether  to  send  a  lad  of  fourteen  years  old, 
in  poverty,  into  a  fairly  well-paid  job,  which  will  prove 
after  a  couple  of  years  only  a  "  blind  alley,"  or  to  put  him 
into  a  trade  which  will  give  him  a  low  wage,  but  train  him 
for  a  life-job.  It  is  easy  to  decide  on  a  "  general  principle," 
but  what  is  the  answer  when  one  studies  the  living  conditions 
of  the  boy  and  his  family  ? 

WOMEN    IN    INDUSTRY 

Women  in  industry  have  opened  many  questions.  Are 
they,  for  instance,  willing  to  undergo  a  long  industrial  train- 
ing from  which  they  will  be  graduated  skilled  workers  ? 
One  investigator  states  that  in  dressmaking  materials  they 
are  ignorant  of  texture  and  fabric,  "  though  these  would 
seem  to  form  a  subject  matter  peculiarly  fitted  to  their  tastes. 
It  is  men  who  occupy  the  higher  positions  in  this  depart- 
ment because  they  have  cared  to  fit  themselves  by  a  course 
of  study." 

Feminist  leaders  answer  that  underpayment  is  a  cause, 
not  a  result,  and  that  the  war  has  revealed  the  woman's  apt- 
itude for  semi-skilled  work. 

Miss   Proud,  in  her  book  on  "  Welfare  Work,"  reports  : 

There  is  a  tendency  for  women  to  feed  the  machines  which  men 
control ;  that  is  to  say,  women's  work  is  apt  to  become  mechanical 
and  low-priced,  therefore  uninspiring  and  inefficient.  .  .  .  Women 
are  inferiors  in  the  industrial  world  because  they  have  not  decided 
(except  individually)  that  they  desire  to  be  otherwise,  or  at  least 
that  they  desire  to  pay  in  training  the  price  of  efficiency. 

If  they  remain  untrained,  they  remain  unskilled,  and  can 
not  receive  the  wages  of  skilled  labour.  Are  they  to  form  a 
great  new  proletarian   mass  of  unskilled  labour,  with  low 


328  APPENDIX 

wages,  while  men  workers  direct  them  and  receive  a  higher 
wage  ?  Will  such  a  division,  growing  ever  sharper,  answer 
the  woman's  craving  for  equality,  which  is  one  of  the  main 
impulses  of  the  woman's  movement  ?  Will  a  system  of  wage 
slavery,  with  men  eternally  in  the  position  of  boss,  fore- 
man, and  superintendent,  seem  a  fuller  life  than  the  home  ? 

Factory  inspectors  and  employers  state  that  the  girl  up 
to  the  age  of  twenty-five  often  has  her  mind  only  half  on 
her  work  and  the  other  half  on  her  prospects  of  marriage. 
The  evening  is  to  her  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  day, 
because  she  then  becomes  a  social  being.  In  a  large  and 
exceptionally  healthful  factory  the  women  left  the  factory 
at  about  twenty-five  years  of  age. 

"  Their  evenings,"  said  the  manager,  "  have  ceased  to  be 
matters  of  first-rate  importance  to  them,  and  they  do  not 
mind  entering  domestic  service." 

Miss  Proud  summarizes  this  sort  of  report,  of  which  there 
were  many  : 

The  suggestion  is  that  women,  as  a  rule,  do  not  give  themselves 
unreservedly  to  their  work  until  they  no  longer  anticipate  giving 
themselves  in  their  offspring. 

WOMEN    AND    POPULATION 

Adelyne  More,  in  her  excellent  pamphlet  "  Fecundity  ver- 
sus Civilization,"  has  collected  extracts  from  a  wide  read- 
ing of  recent  discussions  on  Birth  Control.  She  quotes  from 
Frau  Stritt,  president  of  the  Woman  Suffrage  Union  of 
Germany,  who  occupies  a  position  in  the  German  suffrage 
movement  similar  to  that  held  by  Mrs.  Fawcett  in  England. 
Frau  Stritt  writes  : 

This  question  (the  responsibility  of  women  for  their  lives  as 
mothers)  involves  for  all  those  who  have  learned  to  think  things  to 
their  conclusion  the  real  innermost  core  of  the  woman  question. 
Thus  in  a  certain  sense  the  population  question  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  woman  question, 
and  Frau  Stritt  quotes  from  Dr.  Rutgers  : 

Through  physiological  knowledge  the  woman  has  again  come  to 
be  the  mistress  of  her  own  body  and  of  her  own  fate. 


APPENDIX  329 

I  am  seeking  to  record  tendencies,  not  to  offer  special 
pleas  for  theories  in  this  profoundly  important  matter  of 
population,  the  solution  of  which  will  determine  economic 
basis,  social  structure,  and  foreign  policy.  It  is  probably 
.the  most  significant  single  step  the  race  has  ever  taken  in 
the  control  of  environment.  And  it  will  be  with  this  as 
with  other  extensions  of  that  control.  It  will  alter  human 
relationships.  Children — "  that  is  the  indispensable  condi- 
tion both  for  military  and  industrial  success,"  says  Nau- 
mann  :  food  for  powder  and  food  for  factories.  The  fact 
that  such  advocacy  still  exists  must  be  faced  by  those  who 
would  blithely  cut  down  the  number  of  the  western  democ- 
racies. 

Adelyne  More  sees  the  two  problems. 

(i)  Birth-control  must  be  practised  in  the  slum.  Until  the  "  lower 
class  "  restricts,  our  civilization  is  being  replenished  in  part  by  the 
feeble-minded  and  the  diseased. 

(2)  The  militaristic  nations  must  practise  birth-control  or  they  will 
over-run  the  democracies. 

She  quotes  from  Alfred  Naquet  : 

I±  the  individuals  who  compose  the  nation  wish  to  progress,  to 
develop,  to  live  ;  if,  in  order  to  attain  this  truly  human  ideal,  they 
depart  from  the  instinctive  habits  of  the  non-human  animal ;  if 
they  limit  their  offspring  in  order  to  raise  themselves  in  dignity,  in 
wealth,  in  intellectual  power  ;  to  overcome  the  perils  in  which 
organic  nature  abounds,  and  to  investigate  the  secrets  of  nature — 
then  their  country  will  be  vanquished,  invaded,  spoiled  of  its  wealth, 
and  their  children  ruined  and  reduced  to  partial  slavery. 

Sir  John  Halliday  Croom,  Professor  of  Midwifery  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  writes  ; 

The  falling  birth-rate  is  due  to  many  complex  causes,  but  a  great 
many  of  the  voluntarily  sterile  marriages  are  due  to  the  fear  and 
dread  which  women  have  of  child  bearing.  This,  so  far  as  my 
personal  experience  is  concerned,  is  a  growing  dread,  and  I  feel 
sure  is  one  of  the  many  causes  gi'^ing  rise  to  the  falling  birth-rate. 
Now,  if  a  knowledge  of  Twilight  Sleep  were  to  become  generally 
known  amongst  women,  it  would  do  a  great  deal  to  abrogate  the 
first  curse,  and  so  relieve  their  minds  of  an  overpowering  dread. 


330    .  APPENDIX 

Sidney  Webb  wrote,  a  few  years  ago  : 

Twenty-five  per  cent,  of  our  parents  is  producing  50  per  cent, 
of  the  next  generation.  .  .  .  The  ultimate  future  of  these  islands 
may  be  to  the  Chinese  ! 

This  year  Dean  Inge  notes  the  tendency  towards  what 
I  may  call  industrial  celibacy,  which  he  summarizes  : 

In  all  trades  where  the  women  work  for  wages  the  birth-rate  has 
fallen  sharply. 

This  restriction  would  tend  to  separate  women  into  classes, 
of  which  we  have  an  instance  in  the  Athenian  City-State, 
where  there  was  a  class  of  sterile  intellectual  alien  women, 
in  sharp  distinction  to  the  mothers  of  the  race.  We  read 
in  "  The  Greek  Commonwealth"  : 

Women  tended  to  become  crystallized  into  two  separate  types — 
the  household  matron  under  the  tutelage  of  a  husband  or  some 
other  male  protector,  and  the  independent  professional  woman, 
who  had  indeed  her  "  guardian  "  as  Athenian  law  demanded,  but 
kept  him  for  occasional  use,  as  we  keep  our  solicitors. 

These  professional  women  were  wool- workers  and  mar- 
ket-women or  retailers. 

But  the  chief  and  most  conspicuous  profession  open  to  an  alien- 
born  woman  in  a  Greek  city  was  to  be  what  was  known  as  a  "  com- 
panion." It  was  "  companions,"  not  marriageable  girls,  whom 
the  young  Athenian  encountered  in  mixed  gatherings,  in  attend- 
ance, perhaps,  on  some  of  the  most  refined  and  distinguished  men 
of  the  day  ;  for  it  was  by  contributing  to  the  success  of  these  parties, 
from  which  the  native-born  woman  was  rigidly  excluded,  that  they 
earned  their  livelihood.  "We  have  companions  for  the  sake 
of  pleasure,"  says  Demosthenes,  making  a  clear  distinction  in  which 
there  is  no  hint  of  overlapping,  "  and  wives  to  bear  us  lawful  off- 
spring and  be  faithful  guardians  of  our  houses." 

Though  Athens  had  no  Shakespeare  to  help  us  to  understand 
them  they  must  often  have  felt  as  lonely  and  as  sad  at  heart  as  the 
poor  Fool.  If  they  had  been  allowed  the  support  of  their  secluded 
sisters  who  could  only  watch  them  wistfully  from  their  windows, 
as  they  mingled  with  the  men  in  the  streets  and  in  the  market- 
place, they  might  have  set  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  for  the  first 
time  in  history,  on  an  intelligent  basis,  and  saved  the  memory  of 
Athens  from  a  reproach  of  which  it  is  not  possible  to  clear  her. 


APPENDIX  331 

The  suggestion  of  a  woman's  sex  strike  is  humorously 
dealt  with  by  Aristophanes  in  his  Lysistrata.  "  Athens 
witnessed  the  rise  of  a  movement  for  the  emancipation  of 
woman/'  Euripides  expressed  the  "war-cry"  of  suffering 
woman,  and  their  revolt  from  the  "  hard  hating  voices." 
But  their  bitterness  did  not  avail,  because  organizing  social 
thought  had  not  arrived  at  the  solution.  To-day  the  effort 
is  renewed  to  give  expression  to  the  various  and  complex 
dispositions  of  millions  of  individual  women.  War  and  the 
strife  of  labour  and  capital  are  surface  ripples  compared  with 
the  immense  instinctive  forces  let  loose  by  this  effort. 
Governments  and  trade-unions  will  be  broken  if  they 
oppose  it. 

CLOTHES 

At  the  meeting  of  shareholders  of  the  Fore  Street  Ware- 
house Company  a  net  profit  for  the  year  1916  of  $315,000 
was  announced.  In  191 4  the  profit  was  $140,000.  The  chair- 
man, in  explaining  the  prosperity  of  this  wholesale  drapery 
company,  said  that  "  there  were  many  women  who  for  one 
reason  or  another  had  now  more  money  to  spend  on  surplus 
requirements  than  they  had  had  at  any  previous  time,  and 
whose  first  and  natural  desire  was  to  replenish  their  ward- 
robes." 

The  fact  that  drapery  houses  generally  experienced  a 
profitable  year  in  191 6  is  shown  by  the  reports  of  the  firms 
as  given  in  "  The  Times."  Messrs.  J.  F.  &  H.  Roberts,  a 
Manchester  house,  record  a  net  profit  of  ;^42,22o  or  ;^24,ooo 
more  than  three  years  previously.  Messrs.  Hunter,  Barr 
&  Co.,  of  Glasgow,  announce  an  improvement  of  fifty  per  cent, 
on  1913,  the  net  profit  for  last  year  being  ;^32,488.  In  the  case 
of  Messrs.  John  Howell  &  Co.  the  figure  for  last  year  was 
;^42,i58  against  ;^io,58o  in  1913.  This  is  the  highest  result 
in  the  forty-six  years'  history  of  this  company,  and  is  nine 
times  betteLthan  four  years  ago.  Messrs.  Pawsons  &  Leafs 
record  an  advance  from  i^fi^^  to  ^35,853  in  the  three  years. 
Messrs.  Foster,  Porter  &  Co..  of  Wood  Street,  also  announce 


332  APPENDIX 

profits  nearly  three-and-a-half  times  those  for  the  last  year  of 
the  peace,  though  in  this  case  additional  capital  has  been 
called  up  during  the  interval.  The  profit  for  1916  was  ;^49,i88, 
Messrs.  Alliston  &  Co.  have  turned  a  loss  of  ;^6,4o6  in  1913 
into  a  profit  of  ;^i  1,156  last  year. 

Balancing  this  increased  expenditure,  we  have  many  thou- 
sands of  cases,  of  which  Mrs.  Pember  Reeves  has  collected 
examples  such  as  the  following  : 

Mrs.  P.,  whose  husband  is  a  railway  man,  used  to  get  27  shillings 
before  the  war,  and  now  has  33  shillings.  She  has  a  new  baby, 
which  brings  the  number  of  her  children  up  to  five.  Her  rent  for 
three  rooms  was  7  shillings ;  it  is  now  8  shillings  for  four  rooms. 
She  always  paid  a  shilling  a  week  each  to  a  clothing  and  a  boot 
club,  and  this  she  continues  to  do.  Her  "  gramophone  "  ("  the 
women  are  all  buying  a  piano  or  gramophone  ")  appears  to  be  that 
she  now  buys  twelve  loaves  a  week  instead  of  seven,  and  pays  four 
shillings  instead  of  i  shilling  5^  pence  for  it.  Her  coal  costs  her 
io|  pence  more,  her  meat  2  shillings  more,  her  tea  5  pence,  her 
potatoes  6  pence,  and  the  rest  of  her  expenditure  is  about  i  shilling 
10  pence  higher  than  it  was  before  the  war.  She  is  getting  six 
sliillings  more,  but  the  items  just  quoted  show  that  on  them  alone 
she  is  spending  over  eight  shillings  more  than  she  used  to  do.  She 
therefore,  has  ceased  to  buy  fish,  bacon,  eggs,  cocoa,  jam,  and  cow's 
milk  altogether,  and  buys  less  quantities  of  pot-herbs,  margarine, 
and  sugar. 

TRADE   UNIONS   AND   VOTES    FOR   WOMEN 

If  the  recommendations  of  the  Speaker's  Franchise  Con- 
ference are  carried  into  effect,  the  male  electorate  will  num- 
ber nearly  11  million  out  of  a  manhood  of  I2|  million.  But 
the  Speaker's  Conference  dodged  the  woman  suffrage  question, 
and,  instead  of  a  unanimous  finding,  they  passed  on  the  onus 
of  giving  women  the  vote  to  Parliament.  They  gave  only 
a  majority  vote  to  the  "  principle, '*  and  presented  a  "  pro- 
posal" which  will  give  the  suffrage  to  six  million  women  out 
of  14  million.  In  short,  they  have  "  side-stepped,"  and  left 
"Lloyd  George's  munition  girls,"  who  "saved  the  nation" 
to  win  the  vote  if  they  can.     The  Woman's  Movement  in 


APPENDIX  333 

Great  Britain  will  continue  to  be  in  part  political,  not 
because  it  does  not  value  the  human  implications  of  woman's 
position  in  the  modern  world,  but  because  it  believes  the 
franchise  is  necessary  in  order  to  achieve  those  higher 
values.  The  insistence  on  "  Votes  for  Women  "  has  wrongly 
seemed  to  some  Continental  critics  as  the  superficial  catch- 
phrase  of  women  who  had  not  plumbed  the  meaning  of 
feminism. 

Industrially,  working  women  face  the  same  situation  as 
politically.  The  fight  for  a  decent  standard  of  living  is 
only  in  its  beginning.  There  are  only  74,000  factories  and 
workshops  out  of  277,000  in  the  United  Kingdom  under 
regulations  or  special  rules.  At  Barking,  a  firm,  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  India  rubber  goods,  was  employing 
600  women.  Soon  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  firm 
announced  that  workers  in  the  warping  shed  would  be  em- 
ployed if  they  signed  this  agreement  :  "  We,  the  undersigned, 
agree  to  work  without  a  trade  union."  The  manager  said  : 
"  I  will  have  no  woman  in  the  firm  who  belongs  to  a  trade 
union."  Eighty  of  the  women  belonging  to  the  warping 
department  refused  to  sign  the  paper.  The  majority  of  them 
found  work  elsewhere. 

Certain  trade  unions  have  opened  their  membership  to 
women — ^the  Gas  Workers'  and  General  Labourers'  Union, 
the  Steel  Smelters'  Union,  some  of  the  unions  in  the  Federa- 
tion of  Furnishing  Trades,  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen, 
and  the  Railway  Clerks'  Association,  and  some  smaller 
unions.  But  the  engineering  trade — ^where  the  largest 
movement  of  women  into  men's  work  has  taken  place — has 
not  made  up  its  mind,  and  has  improvised  a  Speaker's  Con- 
ference compromise  in  which  women  are  enrolled  in  the 
National  Federation  of  Women  Workers,  by  arrangement 
with  the  Amalgamated  Society  of  Engineers.  About  50,000 
women  have  been  so  organized  out  of  500,000  women  munition 
makers.  The  working  woman's  place  is  either  the  sweat 
shop  or  trade-union.  As  J.  J.  Mallon,  who  has  long 
mediate"d  in  wage  and  statu  .3  disputes,  says  ; 


334  APPENDIX 

The  line  of  separation  between  skilled  and  unskilled  workmen  is 
shown  by  the  war  to  rest  on  little  more  than  a  convention,  and 
the  craftsmen  realize  that  if  the  labourer  is  not  admitted  to  comrade- 
ship all  their  privileges  are  insecure. 

And  that  line  of  separation  is  equally  a  convention 
between  men  and  Mromen. 

"  The  Woman  Worker,"  an  organ  of  the  woman's  trade 
union  movements,  states  : 

The  women  who  are  doing  very  well  are  those  who  have  had  the 
help,  not  merely  of  their  own  organizations,  but  of  the  great  men's 
unions.  The  Government  protection  of  wages  has  been  given,  not 
in  proportion  to  the  needs  of  the  workers,  or  to  their  usefulness,  but 
solely  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  demand. 

And  it  instances  Newcastle,  where  there  are  6,000  women 
trade-union  members,  and  the  award  given  in  the  case 
of  Messrs.  Armstrong  Wh|tworth's  is  superior  to  others,  the 
time  rate  being  fixed  at  5  pence  an  hour,  with  special  rates 
for  gaugers,  examiners,  and  danger  zone  workers. 

So,  in  the  next  five  years,  women  must  win  over  Govern- 
ment, the  men's  trade  unions,  and  the  employers. 

IRISH    RAILWAYS 

Irish  railways  were  investigated  a  few  years  ago  by  the 
British  Government.  Their  commissioners  found  that  the 
Irish  railway  problem  is  the  restriction  of  agriculture,  industry 
and  trade  in  Ireland,  because  internal  and  export  transit 
rates  are  on  a  higher  scale  than  the  rates  charged  for  con- 
veyance of  commodities  which  compete  with  Irish  products 
in  Irish  and  British  markets.  The  decadence  of  Irish  industry 
has  been  accelerated  by  the  establishment  of  low  through 
rates  from  British  manufacturers  to  Irish  villages,  rates 
which  have  been  much  lower  in  scale  than  the  local  rates 
from  Irish  cities  to  Irish  villages.  The  British  controlled 
Irish  railways  favoured  the  British  manufacturer  at  the 
expense  of  the  local  Irish  manufacturer.  The  woollen  trade 
and  the  textile  and  pottery  industries  have  withered. 

But  not  only  have  through  import  rates  into  Ireland  for 


APPENDIX  335 

many  years  been  relatively  lower  than  the  Irish  internal 
rates,  but  also  through  rates  from  abroad  to  British  ports 
and  interior  centres  have  been  on  a  lower  scale  than  the 
export  rates  from  Ireland.  As  the  result  of  this,  not  only 
has  Irish  commercial  industry  been  strangled,  but  Irish 
agriculture  has  been  crippled.  Even  Ireland's  one  best 
agricultural  industry,  live-stock,  expanded  only  about  i6 
per  cent,  in  twenty  years,  and  the  cattle  trade  employed 
comparatively  little  labour.  In  eggs,  Russia  has  been  com- 
peting successfully  against  Ireland.  On  November  14, 
1 91 6,  T.  W.  Russell,  vice-president  of  the  Department  of 
Agriculture,  stated  publicly  that  by  far  the  largest  propor- 
tion of  the  damage  done  in  transit  to  exported  eggs  took 
place  after  the  eggs  had  left  Ireland. 

Winter  dairying  would  be  stimulated  by  proper  railway 
facilities.  If  coals  came  to  Newcastle  from  Cologne  there 
would  be  prompt  action.  But  Danish  butter  came  into 
Limerick,  one  of  the  principal  centres  of  the  Irish  butter 
trade.  Irish  butter  is  not  to  be  had  throughout  the  year  in 
quantity  enough  for  home  consumption,  though  climate  and 
agricultural  conditions  of  Ireland  are  more  favourable  fo» 
winter  dairying  than  those  of  Denmark.  Better  methods  of 
production  and  a  reduction  of  railway  rates,  encouraging 
farmers  to  go  in  for  winter  dairying,  are  both  needed. 

The  classification  of  Irish  goods,  each  with  its  own  rate, 
is  confusing.  The  secretary  of  the  co-operative  movement 
stated  to  the  Railway  Commission  that  "  the  influence  exer- 
cised over  Irish  railways  by  English  companies  is  a  bad 
influence,  a  growing  influence,  and  likely  to  grow  further." 

The  managing  director  of  the  City  of  Dublin  Steam  Packet 
Company  asserted  that  the  London  and  North-Western 
Railway  Company  practically  controls  the  Irish  railways, 
and  that  a  company  like  his  own,  when  competing  with  that 
railway  company  across  the  Channel,  is  virtually  powerless, 
as  whatever  rates  it  agrees  to  his  company  has  to  agree  to 
the  same. 

Just  as  Ireland  has  been  importing  food  when  she  could 


336  APPENDIX 

produce  it,  so  she  has  been  making  large  imports  in  coal 
when  she  has  extensive  coal  fields.  Here,  as  in  agriculture, 
railway  facilities  are  needed.  The  required  additional  capital 
for  opening  certain  of  them  up  will  be  forthcoming  when 
the  requisite  railway  communication  is  provided.  This  is 
true  of  the  Castlecomer  and  the  Arigna  coal  fields.  Four 
i^les  of  railway  will  release  the  Arigna  mines. 

Of  the  field  at  Coalisland,  E.  St.  John  Lyburn,  economic 
geologist  and  mineral  expert  to  the  Department,  said  : 

The  prospector  would  require  $25,000  or  $50,000  for  trial  holes, 
and  the  field  can  be  developed  for  $1,500,000  or  $2,000,000.  There 
is  no  other  country  but  this  where  the  trial  would  not  have  been 
made  before  now.  There  are  about  60  million  tons  of  coal,  and 
that  can  be  multiplied  by  ten  or  one  hundred,  as  the  deposits  are 
revealed  by  the  scaling  of  the  trial  holes. 

In  this  one  instance,  it  is  capital  rather  than  railway  fa- 
cilities that  are  required.  But  at  Wolf  Hill,  and  for  most 
of  Ireland,  the  primary  need  is  railway  facility.  Capital 
will  follow  opportunity.  The  condition  of  low  rates  und 
special  facilities  in  railway  transport  is  a  trafiic  large  in 
volume,  regular  in  transmission,  and  presented  to  the  car- 
riers in  a  form  convenient  to  handle.  This  means  regu- 
larity of  supply,  a  volume  of  consignments,  good  packing 
of  produce,  co-operation  among  producers.  The  low  Con- 
tinental rates,  which  have  helped  to  capture  the  British 
markets  and  injure  Ireland,  are  also  due  in  many  instances 
to  the  cheapening  of  transport  by  Government  subsidy  and 
and  to  state  ownership  of  lines. 

While  I  was  in  Ireland,  the  Irish  railways  were  taken 
over  by  the  British  Government.  No  policy  has  yet  been 
announced.  A  broad  state  policy  in  tillage,  fertilizer,  seeds, 
machinery  and  a  unified  and  extended  railway  system  will 
bring  prosperity  to  Ireland.  If  that  Government  subsidy 
carries  with  it  the  power  over  Irish  taxation,  the  Irish  people 
will  probably  reject  the  policy.  In  that  event,  Ireland 
herself  will  have  to  find  the  money  for  raising  her  major 
industry,  agriculture,  to  a  new  level.    In  either  case,  the 


APPENDIX  337 

time  has  come  for  a  momentous  decision,  on  which  rests 
the  welfare  of  the  next  fifty  years. 

IRISH    AGRICULTURE 

A  country,  whose  basic  industry  is  agriculture,  has  to 
import  its  food.  A  country  made  up  of  farmers  and  under- 
populated, has  too  few  farms,  and  those  farms  too  small  and 
poor.  Such  is  the  heritage  left  to  Ireland  by  "  British  states- 
manship "  like  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  economic 
basis  of  Ireland  is  agriculture,  but  in  191 5  it  was  forced  to 
import  bacon  and  hams  at  a  cost  of  $15,500,000,  butter 
12,300,000,  oats  $750,000,  wheat  $20,000,000,  wheat  flour 
$18,500,000. 

T.  W.  Russell,  vice-president  of  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture, says  : 

Without  doubt  we  might  have  produced  every  shilling's  worth 
of  this  and  much  more  ourselves.  The  Government  at  the  present 
time  is  bringing  food  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  It  is  doing 
this  at  immense  cost  and  at  no  little  risk.  And  all  the  while  there 
are  several  millions  of  acres  in  Ireland  which  might  be  tilled  with 
profit  to  the  farmer  and  immense  advantage  to  the   tate. 

The  Department  of  Agriculture  states  that  there  is  every 
likehhood  that  next  season  the  supply  of  superphosphate 
will  not  equal  the  demand.  This  will  prevent  the  manuring 
of  grass  lands.  Some  thousands  of  tons  of  sulphate  of  cop- 
per was  exported,  not  for  military  purposes.  "  It  was  taken 
from  Irish  agriculture,"  says  the  "  Freeman's  Journal,"  "  at 
a  time  of  its  sorest  need  and  sold  to  protect  agriculture  in 
other  countries.  Hence  there 'was  only  a  limited  supply 
of  spraying  material  in  this  country  to  stem  the  ravages  of 
the  blight." 

It  was  sold  to  France  and  Italy  for  spraying  grapes. 

This  action  left  Irish  agriculturists  with  practically  no  sulphate 
for  the  spraying  of  potatoes.  That  is  the  cause  of  the  failure  of 
more  than  one-fourth  of  the  Irish  potato  crop  this  year. 

Mr.  Runciman,  speaking  of  the  United  Kingdom,  said  ; 
Y 


338  APPENDIX 

Ploughing  is  behindhand  not  only  because  many  horses  have  been 
put  out  of  action,  but  because  steam  carriage  is  lying  idle  in  con- 
sequence of  mechanics  having  been  so  freely  recruited  from  some 
of  the  big  agricultural  implement  makers. 

Irish  agriculture  has  been  crippled  at  the  very  crisis  when 
food  is  necessary  for  Great  Britain  to  win  the  war.  Sup- 
plies of  seed,  fertilizer,  imported  food-stufEs,  and  agricultural 
and  dairy  machinery,  are  shortened  when  they  ought  to 
be  greatly  extended. 

An  important  study  of  Irish  agriculture  has  recently  been 
made  by  an  expert  whom  I  know,  who  signs  himself  "  Agri- 
cola."  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  publish  his  name.  One  of  the 
high  officials  of  the  British  Government  in  Ireland  recom- 
mended these  articles  to  me  as  giving  a  just  picture  of  con- 
ditions.    I  summarize  the  conclusions  in  what  follows. 

Irish  agriculture  is  backward  because  three-fifths  of  the 
land  is  held  by  one-sixth  of  the  landholders  under  terms 
restricting  or  prohibiting  tillage.  Four-fifths  of  all  the  crops 
are  used  on  the  farms  for  seed  or  for  food  to  live  stock,  and 
only  one-fifth  is  sold  either  as  human  food,  as  food  for  non- 
agricultural  live  stock,  or  as  raw  material  for  industry,  such 
as  flax  and  barley.  From  that  one-fifth  must  also  be  deducted 
the  one-seventh  which  farmers  and  their  families  use.  |So 
farming  product  is  one-seventh  live  stock  and  six-sevenths 
live  stock  and  produce  for  live  stock.  There  is  room 
then  for  extension  of  the  crop  area  of  Ireland,  which 
would  both  benefit  the  live  stock  production  and  increase 
corn  food  for  the  population.  Care  must  be  taken  in 
increasing  tillage  not  to  let  cows  run  dry  for  want  of 
sufficient  food.  But  care  can  be  taken  to  safe-guard 
live  stock  and  yet  to  release  the  acreage  of  Ireland  for 
tillage. 

Over  sixty-four  per  cent,  of  the  land  of  Ireland  is  in  grass. 

At  every  stage  in  his  history  the  Irish  agriculturalist  has  been 
struggling  against  laws  and  ordinances  that  sought  to  force  grazing 
instead  of  tillage.  These  orders  and  enactments  are  on  record 
since  the  days  of  Cromwell  and  the  Stuarts. 


APPENDIX  ^  339 

But  the  tillage  instinct  of  the  Irish  farmer  has  continued 
strong  against  alien  legislation. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  Peel  attacked  tillage  in  Ireland, 
and  the  wholesale  evictions  that  cleared  thousands  of  acres  were 
the  beginning  of  the  grazing  ranches  that  are  the  cause  of  contention 
in  our  own  day. 

Four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  three  hundred 
and  thirty-five  acres  of  wheat  were  lost  to  the  plough. 

The  British  Food  Controller  would  do  well  to  note  that  the 
loss  of  this  food  in  this  crisis  in  his  country's  history  is  due  to  what 
was  then  loudly  acclaimed  as  "  wise  British  statesmanship."  The 
decrease  in  the  area  of  all  corn  crops  since  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Planta- 
tion Scheme  was  started  is  nearly  two  million  acres.  There  is  a 
loss  of  60  per  cent,  of  corn,  of  26  per  cent,  of  green  crops,  and  of 
65  per  cent,  of  flax. 

In  1 91 6,  the  area  of  pasture  and  grazed  mountain  increased 
by  86,585  acres  to  a  total  of  12,437,709  acres.  The  tillage 
increased  only  42,236  acres  to  a  total  of  2,400,356  acres.  So 
the  same  bad  tendency  towards  pasture  over  tillage  is  still 
under  way.  England  in  refusing  to  let  Ireland  sow  has 
now  failed  to  reap  the  harvests  that  would  have  reduced 
submarines  to  toys. 

The  absence  of  drainage  and  of  irrigation  is  a  further 
hindrance  to  Irish  farming.  The  lowering  of  river  beds, 
like  the  Barrow  and  the  Shannon,  is  suggested.  A  century 
ago,  a  Royal  Commision  of  the  British  Government  recom- 
mended a  drainage  scheme  for  the  477,784  acres  of  turf 
bog  in  Ireland.  Other  commissions  since  then  have  rein- 
forced the  demand,  but  the  bogs  ^tjjl  exist  and  even  in  recent 
years  have  risen  on  their  underwater  and  travelled  over  the 
a<ijacent  country,  in  one  instance  for  a  distance  of  ten  miles 
and  a  depth  of  40  feet.  A  bog  injures  the  land  around  by 
excessive  inoisture  to  an  extent  of  perhaps  50  per  cent,  of 
its  own  area.  The  bogs  of  Ireland  injure  4 J  per  cent,  of 
the  land.  Eight  and  one-half  per  cent,  of  Connacht 
is  bog,  and  nineteen  per  cent,  of  King's  County.  There 
is  bog  in   every  Irish  county.      If  these  bogs  were  drained, 


340  APPENDIX 

much  land  would  be  freed,  irrigation  would  be  possible, 
and  the  immense  supplies  of  peat  could  be  used  locally, 
converted  into  charcoal,  for  the  production  of  power, 

TRUSTS 

Inevitably  standardization  leads  to  organisation  and  the 
creation  of  combines  or  trusts.  Motor-car  makers  suggest 
the  use  of  the  great  new  plants  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
cheap  cars  to  compete  with  those  of  American  make.  Already 
efforts  are  being  made  to  bring  about  a  combination  of 
British  makers. 
.  But  it  is  not  alone  in  the  engineering  trades  that  trusts  are 
likely  to  be  formed.  Already  capital  is  concentrating  in  other 
industries.  Lord  Rhondda  purchased  a  group  of  Welsh 
collieries,  and  the  "  Welsh  Outlook  "  reports  : 

Lord  Rhondda  now  controls  over  3  J  millions  of  capital,  pays  2^ 
millions  in  wages  every  year,  and  is  virtually  the  dictator  of  the 
economic  destiny  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  miners.  Rumours  are 
also  current  that  Lord  Rhondda  is  extending  his  control  over  the 
press  of  Wales. 

Lord  Milner  writes : 

The  future  belongs  to  big-scale  business  or  to  such  smaller  busi- 
nesses as  can  learff  to  work  together  and  to  pool  their  resources ' 
for  certain  obj  ects — the  full  use  of  scientific  research  being  only  on© 
of  them — which  individually  they  are  not  strong  enough  to  attain. 

Recently  42  electric  lighting  authorities  met  to  perfect 
an  electrical  amalgamation  for  the  counties  of  Cheshire  and 
Lancashire. 

But  large-scale  production  alone  does  not  solve  the  labour 
difficulty.  American  mining  combines  in  the  West  and  Penn- 
sylvania, our  steel  combine  in  the  East,  our  interstate-rail- 
way combines  have  not  softened  the  labour  conflict.  Two 
points  of  view  are  common  in  discussing  big  combines.  One 
is  to  fight  them  as  tyrannical  and  to  try  to  break  them  up 
into  competing  units  ;  the  other  is  to  swallow  them  whole. 
Neither   satisfies.     Is   the   large  .unit   necessarily  the   most 


APPENDIX  34i 

efficient  ?  Is  there  no  limit  to  its  size  ?  If  in  the  given 
case,  it  is  the  most  efficient,  what  shall  be  the  method  of 
democratic  control  ?  These  are  questions  more  fertile  than 
ethical  questions  of  the  "  good  trusts,'*  and  theoretical 
questions  as  to  whether  Mr.  Rockefeller  is  the  middleman 
between  individualism  and  socialism.  A  powerful  group  of 
men  are  urging  the  syndication  of  industry  in  England, 
They  approve  of  "  the  large  scale"  for  business.  Doubtless, 
they  will  be  successful.  But  when  they  have  achieved  it, 
they  will  be  faced  by  the  same  problems  that  America  now 
wrestles  with. 

TARIFF   REFORM 

The  efiort  will  soon  be  made  in  Great  Britain  to  thrust 

into  the    forefront    of    politics    minor    fractional  parts    of 

reconstruction  as  if  they  were  major.  A  valuable  pamphlet 
called  "  The  Elements  of  Reconstruction  "  says  : 

There  is  a  danger — and  nowadays  it  is  the  great  danger — of 
becoming  just  as  bUndly  superstitious  about  a  tariff  (as  about  the 
kindred  superstition  of  Free  Trade) .  A  tariff  is  perhaps  a  necessary 
part  of  any  national  economic  scheme,  but  it  is  not  in  itself  an 
economic  scheme.  A  tariff  varies  in  public  value  with  the  economic 
constitution  of  the  state  it  protects.  The  country  will  not  stand  a 
merely  protective  tariff  in  foodstuffs,  or  in  any  commodity. 

High  wages  and  high  prices  are  leading  to  a  demand  for 
protection.  England  is  talking  of  coming  over  on  the  good 
old  McKinley  American  basis.  The  ancient  battle-ground 
of  tariff  reform  is  going  to  be  churned  into  dust  and  heat. 
For  a  growing  group  of  Tories,  reinforced  by  converts,  like 
the  new  Minister  of  Labour,  are  finding  the  source  of  all  econ- 
omic weakness  in  free  trade.  A  convenient,  one-phrase 
suromary  solution  of  a  complex  matter  is  always  appre- 
ciated by  men  who  don't  enjoy  the  process  of  organizing 
thought.  This  is  no  sudden  conversion  for  a  portion  of  the 
Tories.  Disraeli  held  that  "  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  Free 
Trader  was  to  govern  England  in  the  interest  of  the  Indus- 
trialist," as  Butler  points  out  in  his  able  study  of  "  The  Tory 


342  APPENDIX 

Tradition."  "  I  wish,"  said  Disraeli,  "  to  see  our  national 
prosperity  upheld  alike  by  a  skilful  agriculture  and  by  an 
extended  commerce." 

That  "  alike"  to  be  efEective  would  require  some  of  the 
same  magic  which  Joshua  used  on  the  setting  sun,  for  England 
is  an  industrial  country.  But  Disraeli  and  many  of  the 
later  Tory  protectionists  acted  from  long-held  conviction. 
Whereas  there  is  a  touch  of  extempore  when  Mr.  Hodge,  the 
new  Minister  of  Labour,  intoxicated  by  his  association  with 
peers  of  the  realm,  cries  out  in  Pisgah  vision  that  England  is 
done  with  free  trade.  At  least  it  will  pay  him  to  study  the 
happy  industrial  proletariat  in  Fall  River,  Lawrence,  and 
other  protected  cities  before  he  turns  to  tariff  reform  as  the 
sole  salvation  of  a  country  that  requires  immense  quantities 
of  raw  material. 

This  is  the  danger  which  England  faces,  that  her  leaders 
will  run  after  panaceas  of  protection,  business  government, 
scientific  management,  instead  of  deaUng  with  what  is  the 
heart  of  each  one  of  her  problems — ^human  relationship. 

As  Colonies  like  India,  institute  under  self-government  a 
protective  tarifi,  a  new  and  fruitful  cause  of  world-war  will 
be  introduced  into  a  situation  already  under  chronic  strain. 

CHILD   WELFARE 

Sir  George  Newman,  chief  medical  officer  of  the  Board  of 
Education,  states  : 

The  machinery  for  dealing  with  the  welfare  of  infants  and  of 
children  of  school  age  is  in  existence,  although  all  that  ought  to 
be  got  from  it  is  not  yet  being  obtained.  But  the  machinery  for 
dealing  with  the  children  between  one  year  and  five  years  of  age 
has  yet  to  be  built. 

There  is  an  unexplored  problem  here.  Industry  must  free 
the  mother  for  motherhood.  What  space  of  time  is  to  be 
safeguarded,  and  in  what  form  the  economic  security  of  the 
family  is  to  be  guaranteed  are  matters  still  imperfectly  investi- 
gated.    Meanwhile,  the  maternity  centres  in  the  municipality. 


APPENDIX  343 

and  such  brilliant  experimental  work  in  the  care  of  child  life 
as  that  of  Margaret  McMillan  at  Deptford,  continue  and 
grow.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  in  a  London  borough 
told  me  that  with  ii  official  and  voluntary  centres  they  were 
dealing  with  less  than  2,000  infants  a  year  in  a  birth-rate  of 
5,000. 

BACKWARD    RACES 

The  whole  question  of  undeveloped  countries  and  backward 
races  has  never  been  thought  through  by  Americans.  We  are 
lazy-minded  on  the  causes  of  the  war,  and  cherish  a  vague 
pacifism,  as  if  the  instinct  of  nationality  and  the  lust  for 
territory  and  new  markets  were  non-existent. 

A.  E.  Zimmern  writes  : 

It  may  still  be  argued  that  the  question  is  not,  Have  the  civilized 
powers  annexed  large  empires  ?  but  Ought  they  to  have  done  so  ? 
Was  such  an  extension  of  governmental  authority  justifiable  or 
inevitable  ?  Englishmen  in  the  nineteenth  century,  like  Americans 
in  the  twentieth,  were  slow  to  admit  that  it  was  ;  just  as  the  expon- 
ents of  laissez-faire  were  slow  to  admit  the  necessity  for  state  inter- 
ference with  private  industry  at  home.  But  in  both  cases  they 
have  been  driven  to  accept  it  by  the  inexorable  logic  of  facts. 
What  other  solution  of  the  problem,  indeed,  is  possible  ? 

He  then  quotes  another  authority  on  the  impossibility  of 
standing  aside  and  letting  adventurers  and  exploiters  enter, 
and  on  the  need  of  backward  peoples  having  contact  with  the 
outside  world,  and  receiving  protection  from  oppression  and 
corruption.  This  is  a  "  duty  "  of  the  great  powers — "  a  still 
better  na\ne  would  be  the  great  responsibilities." 

The  late  Lord  Cromer,  in  defending  his  rule  in  Egypt,  once 
said  : 

What,  gentlemen,  has  there  been  no  moral  advancement  ?  Is 
the  country  any  longer  governed,  as  was  formerly  the  case,  exclus- 
ively by  the  use  of  the  whip  ?  Is  not  forced  labour  a  thing  of  the 
past  ?  Has  not  the  accursed  institution  of  slavery  practically  ceased 
to  exist  ?  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  every  individual  in  the  country,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  is  now  equal  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  ;  that 
thrift  has  been  encouraged,  and  that  the  most  humble  member  of 


344  APPENDIX 

society  can  reap  the  fruits  of  his  own  labour  and  industry  [  that 
justice  is  no  longer  bought  and  sold ;  that  every  one  is  free — 
perhaps  some  would  think  too  free — to  express  his  opinions ;  that 
King  Backsheesh  has  been  dethroned  from  high  places  and  now  only 
lingers  in  the  purlieus  and  byways  of  the  administration ;  that  the 
fertilizing  water  of  the  Nile  is  distributed  impartially  to  prince  and 
peasant  alike  ;  that  the  sick  man  can  be  tended  in  a  well-equipped 
hospital ;  that  the  criminal  and  the  lunatic  are  no  longer  treated 
as  wild  beasts ;  that  even  the  lot  of  the  brute  creation  has  not 
escaped  the  eyes  of  the  reformer ;  that  the  solidarity  of  interests 
between  the  governors  and  the  governed  has  been  recognized  in 
theory  and  in  practice  ;  that  every  act  of  the  Administration,  even 
if  at  times  mistaken — for  no  one  is  infallible — bears  the  mark  of 
honesty  of  purpose  and  an  earnest  desire  to  secure  the  well-being 
of  the  population  ;  and  further,  that  the  funds,  very  much  reduced 
in  amount,  which  are  now  taken  from  the  pockets  of  the  taxpayers, 
instead  of  being,  for  the  most  part,  spent  on  useless  palaces  and 
other  objects,  in  which  they  were  in  no  degree  interested,  are 
devoted  to  purposes  which  are  of  real  benefit  to  the  country  ?  If 
all  these,  and  many  other,  points  to  which  I  could  allude,  do  not 
constitute  some  moral  advancement,  then,  of  a  truth,  I  do  not  know 
what  the  word  morality  implies. 

Let  us  criticize  as  much  as  we  like  the  arrogance  of  tone  in 
this  and  in  the  English  belief  in  general  that  they  are  born  to 
govern.  But  what  do  we  Americans  offer  in  place  of  their 
imperfect  administration  ?  Are  we  willing  to  take  on  our 
share  of  the  job  of  internationalizing  these  plague-spots,  or  are 
we  going  to  turn  them  over  to  the  people  who  live  there  ? 
Which  people  ?  To  the  Mahdi  and  Khalifa  who  rise  on  a  wave 
of  religious  hysteria  and  cause  the  death  of  over  five  million 
Egyptians  in  the  space  of  fourteen  years  ?  To  the  particular 
tribe  with  the  sharpest  sword  ?  To  the  most  corrupt,  and 
therefore  most  powerful,  native  prince  who  will  use  machine- 
guns  on  the  "  aliens  "  in  the  next  province  because  they 
honour  the  Prophet  instead  of  the  all-highest  Lord  Buddha  ? 
Is  laissez-faire  satisfactory  ?  Actually  there  are  only  three 
"  futures  "  for  the  undeveloped  countries  :  anarchy,  with  the 
slavery  and  murder  of  the  gentler  tribes,  and  the  unbridled 
exploitation  of  most  of  the  natives  ;  colonial  rule ;  inter- 
nationalization. 


APPENDIX  345 

HORATIO    BOTTOMLEY 

The  value  of  Horatio  Bottomley  as  a  leader  in  time  of  crisis 
can  be  appraised  by  these  extracts  from  "  John  Bull."  This 
in  his  contribution  to  child  welfare  : 

Education 
Will  the  new  Education  Minister  just  try  to  shake  ofi  bis  Uni- 
versify  prejudices,  and  bring  in  a  short  Act  releasing  from  school 
attendance  all  children  capable  of  assisting  on  farms  or  doing  other 
useful  work — for  the  duration  of  the  war  ?  Never  mind  when 
WilUam  the  Conqueror  came  to  the  throne. 

This  is  his  knightly  militant  note  : 

To  win  through  to  victory  we  must  make  every  German  bite  the 
dust.  The  women  who  danced  in  the  streets  when  the  Lusitania 
murders  shocked  civiUzation  are  fighting  us  just  as  much  as  the 
men  who  reeled  with  drink  when  the  joy  bells  rang  over  little  children 
done  to  death  by  the  bombs  of  the  Zeppelin. 

One  of  his  contributors  has  a  word  for  backward  races  : 

Why  drain  Great  Britain  dry  of  its  manhood,  until  the  coloured 
sons  of  Empire  have  been  called  into  the  fighting  lines  to  help  to 
bear  the  burden  of  war  ?  We  want  more  men  to  bring  the  Hun 
to  his  knees — why  not  three,  six,  or  ten  million  coloured  soldiers 
to  help  to  ram  the  sword  of  Victory  home  ?  I  know  many  of  the 
coloured  races,  and  I  believe  they  would  fight  willingly  and  splen- 
didly. Some  opponents  allege  otherwise ;  if  the  latter  are  right, 
why  ask  the  British  taxpayers  in  time  of  peace  to  shell  out  to  keep 
and  protect  a  population  that  is  no  good  to  us  in  time  of  adversity  ? 

Finally  we  have  Bottomley,  the  man  of  faith  and  vision, 
facing  the  unseen,  a  gentleman  unafraid  : 

I,  the  man  of  the  world,  the  man  of  Business,  the  man  of  affairs, 
the  4isciple  of  Foote  and  Bradlaugh,  the  nephew  of  George  Jacob 
Holyoake — I  have  come  to  be  convinced  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  Death. 

THE   WHITE    KNIGHT 
Here  is  a  touch  out  of  the  eleventh  century.     A  recent 
issue  of  "  The  Observer  "  stated  that  "  if  we  are  not  mistaken," 
the  line  of  the  White  Knight  was  now  extinct.     PhiUp  John 
Fitz-Gibbon  thereupon  wrote  to  them  in  November  of  1916  ; 


346  APPENDIX 

Observer • 

Novembei?  12,  1916. 

I  beg  to  observe  that  this  is  not  the  case.  Though  I  have  never 
assumed  the  title,  I  am  the  holder  of  it.  .  .  .'At  the  time  of  my 
father's  death  in  February,  188 1,  my  uncle  published  an  obituary 
notice  in  "  The  Times  "  and  other  papers  stating  that  my  father, 
Maurice  Fitz-Gibbon,  was  the  White  Knight  and  that  I  was  his  suc- 
cessor in  the  title. 

In  Vol.  XVII,,  No.  93,  of  the  Journal  of  the  Cork  Historical  and 
Archaeological  Society  for  January-March,  1912,  Colonel  J.  Grove 
White,  J. P.,  D.L.,  of  Kilbyrne,  Co.  Cork,  published  the  White 
Knight's  pedigree  (from  Dominus  Otho  in  A.D.  1057  to  date),  which 
was  taken  from  the  authorities  he  has  therein  quoted,  and  stated 
clearly  that  I  hold  the  title  of  White  Knight,  being  24th  in  descent 
from  the  said  Dominus  Otho  and  17th  in  descent  from  the  first 
White  Knight,  Maurice,  who  was  the  eldest  son  of  Gilbert,  or  Gibbon, 
whose  second  and  third  brothers,  John  and  Maurice,  were  the 
respective  ancestors  of  the  Knights  of  Glinn  (Black  Knight)  and 
Kerry  (Red  Knight).  These  Knighthoods  date  from  the  battle  of 
Hallidon  Hill  in  1333. 

The  pedigree  is  taken  largely  from  the  Cotter  MS.,  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  Burke's  "  Landed  Gentry,"  too,  states  that  I  am 
the  White  Knight. 

LOCAL   PATRIOTISM 

The  British  love  of  locality  is  often  overlooked  by  foreign 
observers,  because  the  Briton  seldom  puts  it  into  words. 
Thus  a  French  observer  says  that  the  word  patrie  does  not 
exist  in  English  :  for  a  Frenchman  patrie  means  his  sacred  soil : 
home  and  inheritance.  But  "  the  place  and  all  around  it  " 
are  equally  dear  to  the  Briton.  Recently  Lieutenant  Lord 
Newborough  died  from  trench-chill.     In  his  will  he  wrote  : 

I  wish  to  be  buried,  if  I  die  in  England,  in  the  simplest  manner 
compatible  with  decency,  on  the  summit  of  the  Bluff  in  Festiniog, 
which  lies  on  the  western  side  of  the  road  from  Bryn  Llewellyn, 
and  which  Bluff  is  known  to  my  sisters  and  intimate  friends  as  New- 
borough  Hill,  as  from  that  spot  there  is  my  favourite  view  down  the 
Vale  of  Festiniog  ;  and  I  wish  my  tombstone  to  be  a  simple  slab  of 
stone  from  my  estate,  protected  from  desecration  by  tourists,  but 
otherwise  leaving  my  burial-place  free  for  sheep  and  cattle  to  roam 
all  around  the  actual  grave. 


APPENDIX  347 

THE    BRITISH    COMMONWEALTH 

A  writer  has  stated  in  the  "  Eugenics  Review  "  of  the  British 
Commonwealth  : 

This  conflict  (the  war) ,  however  huge,  is  no  more  than  an  episode 
in  an  immensely  vaster  struggle,  of  which  the  prize  is  not  precarious 
poHtical  supremacy  in  Europe  for  a  few  generations,  but  world  pre- 
dominance irrevocably  established  by  nature.  True  decision  was 
reached  nearly  a  century  ago.  The  great  immigrations  and  per- 
manent conquests  are  drawing  to  a  final  close.  Germany  joins  a 
contest  already  decided.  The  battle  is  over,  and  with  us  rests  the 
ultimate  victory.  The  Anglo-Saxons  have  more  space  for  expansion 
than  any  other  people.  "  All  North  America  "  is  "in  the  grasp 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  his  race  "  has  "  almost  limitless  space  for 
expansion."  Subsequently  he  colonized  Australasia.  His  place 
in  the  sun,  his  ultimate  world-supremacy  was  now  estabhshed.  .  .  . 
With  the  exception  of  temperate  South  America  and  parts  ol  the 
western  seaboard  of  that  continent,  our  race  has  colonized  almost 
all  the  regions  of  the  new  world  in  which  it  is  possible  for  a  European 
race  to  flourish.  In  the  coming  future  no  other  people  will  be  so 
numerous,  so  widespread,  or  in  command  of  resources  so  tremendous. 

Canada  and  Australasia  may  follow  the  example  of  the  United 
States,  and  separate  poUtically  from  the  parent  stock.  BUT  THE 
RACE  ITSELF  IS  SECURE.  It  is  impossible,  within  the  bounds 
of  probability,  to  imagine  a  conjunction  of  circumstances  capable 
of  uprooting  it  from  its  new  habitations.  The  sword  and  disease 
are  the  only  agents  of  racial  ehmination  known  to  us,  and  now  the 
latter,  hke  the  former,  is  losing  its  power. 

Dean  Inge,  who  is  one  of  the  two  or  three  best  thinkers  in 
the  Established  Church,  has  visioned  the  same  future,  and  he 
sees  the  possibility  of  a  white  race  of  200,000,000  in  the  British 
Commonwealth . 

The  swing  of  modern  thought  is  away  from  this  idea  of 
national  racial  destiny,  and  toward  the  idea  that  the  coming 
state  will  be  a  commonwealth  :  that  is,  a  bundle  of  nations 
and  races.  The  city-state  was  long  ago  too  tiny  a  packet  to 
hold  humanity,  and  now  the  nation-State  is  being  rapidly 
outgrown  because  of  dispersions  and  world-movements  of 
population.  Students  are  increasingly  inclined  to  believe  that 
the  future  of  the  British  Empire  is  that  of  a  commonwealth  of 
nations,  rather  than  a  future  of  racial  integrity  and  homo- 


348  APPENDIX 

geneity.  The  United  States  is  already  a  composite  of  many 
nations,  with  the  common  denominator  not  yet  discovered. 
Canada  is  fast  turning  to  a  congeries  of  nationaUties. 

Professor  George  M.  Wrong,  of  the  University  of  Toronto, 
has  come  to  grips  with  this  matter.     He  says  : — ■ 

"  A  racial  nationalism  involves  either  isolation,  or  the  supremacy 
ol  a  dominant  race  in  a  mixed  state.  It  tends  to  run  to  pride  and 
arrogance.  When  the  British  Empire  was  younger  we  used  to  hear 
a  good  deal  about  the  triumphant  destiny  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 
In  time,  not  Ukeness,  but  diversity  of  institutions  was  emphasized, 
and  little  thought  was  given  to  race.  To-day  no  wise  statesman 
has  any  thought  of  trying  to  Anglicize  the  British  Empire.  Let  us 
dismiss  for  ever  the  superstition  that  there  is  any  magic  in  race  to 
hold  people  together  and  effect  political  unity.  It  is  partnership 
in  common  hberties  which  unites  people.  The  growth  of  the 
new  nationalism  in  the  British  Empire  is  just  the  growth  of  Liberty." 

WHAT   TO   READ 

A  bibliography  of  the  present  reconstruction  in  Great 
Britain  would  number  thousands  of  books  and  pamphlets. 
I  wish  to  suggest  a  few  of  the  more  important  of  these  for  any 
reader  who  cares  to  make  a  study. 

Graham  Wallas's  "  Human  Nature  in  Politics  "  and  "  The 
Great  Society  "  are  the  products  of  a  lifetime  of  constructive 
thinking  by  one  of  the  fertile  intellects  of  the  modern  world. 
No  one  who  wishes  to  understand  the  deeper  psychological 
elements  in  the  problems  of  modern  England  can  do  without 
the  help  of  Wallas.  He  is  one  of  the  few  writers  on  human 
nature  in  national  and  international  politics  and  industrial 
organization  whose  conclusions  have  been  left  unassailed  by  the 
war. 

Bertrand  Russell's  "  Principles  of  Social  Reconstruction  " 
(published  in  America  as  "  Why  Men  Fight  ")  is  a  stimulating 
instance  of  the  new  psychology  applied  to  society.  It  con- 
tains passages  of  great  beauty. 

A.  E.  Zimmern's  essays  in  the  "  Round  Table  "  and  in  the 
volume  "  Progress  and  History  "  are  a  careful  study  of  the 


APPENDIX  349 

industrial  situation  by  a  man  who  understands  the  present 
tendency  toward  workers'  control. 

"  The  Reorganization  of  Industry,"  a  pamphlet  issued  by 
Ruskin  College,  contains  a  skilful  analysis  of  what  the  post- 
of&ce  would  be  under  democratic  control. 

W.  Mellor,  the  secretary  of  the  National  Guilds  League, 
has  Idndly  drawn  up  for  me  a  list  of  references  on  workers' 
control.  The  list  includes  "  Labour  in  War  Time,"  by 
G.  D.  H.  Cole  ;  the  publications  of  the  National  Guilds  League 
on  "  National  Guilds,"  "  The  Guild  Idea,"  "  Towards  a  Miners' 
Guild  "  ;  "  National  Guilds,"  edited  by  A.  R.  Orage  ;  "  The 
World  of  Labour,"  by  Cole ;  "  The  Coal  Trade  "  by  H.  S. 
Jevons  ;  Cadbury's  book  on  Experiments  in  Industrial  Organ- 
ization ;  "  Trade  as  a  Science  "  ;  "  Co-operative  Production 
and  Profit  Sharing,"  an  investigation  by  the  committee  of 
the  Fabian  Research  Department. 

The  Whitley  Report  on  Joint  Industrial  Councils  is  an 
interesting  and  important  next  step,  but  it  fails  to  deal  funda- 
mentally with  certain  of  the  questions.  It  is  like  the  recent 
Russian  manifestos :  aimed  in  the  right  direction.  Now 
comes  the  sterner  job  of  defining  terms  and  getting  action. 
What,  for  instance,  is  to  be  the  final  relationship  of  the  state 
to  the  Joint  Industrial  Board — mandatory,  advisory,  horta- 
tory ?  Do '  Joint  Committees  mean  Workers'  Control  for 
certain  questions,  or  is  "  workers'  control  "  merely  a  statement 
of  grievance  and  a  friendly  discussion  ?  As  I  understand  it, 
the  Whitley  Report  purposely  burkes  all  searching  questions, 
and  is  intended  as  a  "  feeler."  This  will  explain  the  approval 
of  the  "  Morning  Post"  and  Liberal  papers,  who  never  before 
drove  in  one  team  toward  the  green  and  pleasant  land  of  Syndi- 
calism. The  report  ofEers  a  piece  of  excellent  machinery. 
Who  shall  control  that  machinery  remains  the  important 
question,  and  what  is  the  percentage  of  control  to  capital,  to 
management,  to  the  workers  and  to  the  state  is  contained  in 
the  same  question. 

The  Reports  of  the  Commission  of  Enquiry  into  Industrial 
Unrest  ar«  essential  to  any  one  wishing  to  understand  the 


350  APPENDIX 

forces  and  tendencies  in  the  Labour  Movement.  The  Report 
on  Wales,  in  particular,  is  a  model  of  what  social  investigation 
at  its  best  can  give  in  analysis  and  synthesis. 

Reports  of  value  are  those  of  a  "  Conference  of  British  Em- 
ployers and  Trade  Unionists  on  the  Industrial  Outlook,"  one 
of  "  Leeds  Trade  Unionists  and  Others,"  and  one  of  a  "  Con- 
ference at  Stoke  of  Operatives  and  Manufacturers  on  the 
Pottery  Industry  after  the  War." 

The  reader  should  also  consult  "  A  Memorandum  on  Indus- 
trial Self-Government,  together  with  a  draft  scheme  for  a 
Builders'  National  Industrial  Parliament,"  by  Malcolm 
Sparkes. 

The  investigation  by  the  section  of  economic  science  and 
statistics  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  has  been  pubUshed  under  the  title  of  "  Labour,  Finance, 
and  the  War." 

The  pamphlet  "  Great  Britain  After  the  War,"  by  Sidney 
Webb  and  Arnold  Freeman,  is  a  short  and  valuable  summary. 

The  Garton  Foundation  has  issued  a  book  on  the  "  Indus- 
trial Situation  after  the  War,"  which  analyzes  the  revolution- 
ary unrest  and  suggests  remedies.  Mr.  Balfour  is  one  of  the 
trustees  of  this  foundation. 

The  investigations  of  Seebohm  Rowntree  are  already  classics 
for  social  workers.  His  studies  of  York,  of  agricultural 
labour,  of  land,  of  Belgium,  are  widely  known.  It  will  be 
found  that  his  recommendation!  will  he  influential  in  the 
reconstruction. 

An  important  study  of  Industrial  Unrest  will  be  found  in 
the  "  Manchester  Guardian  "  in  issues  through  the  month  of 
June,  1917. 

The  best  synthesis  of  the  British  Social  Revolution  appears 
in  "  After- War  Problems  "  (George  Allen  &  Unwin).  Such 
chapters  as  those  by  the  late  Lord  Cromer,  Dr.  James  Kerr, 
Margaret  McMillan,  and  Professor  Marshall,  ought  to  be 
printed  in  penny  pamphlets  and  scattered  by  the  thousand. 

William  Hard,  in  the  "  Metropolitan  Magazine  "  (1917), 
Will  Irwin  and  Isaac  Marcosson  in  the  "  Saturday  Evening 


APPENDIX  351 

Post"  (1916,  and  1917)  have  contributed  valuable  studies 
of  the  social  changes  in  England. 

No  more  important  book  has  been  published  during  the 
war  than  "  The  Town  Labourer,"  by  J.  L.  Hammond  and 
Barbara  Hammond.  It  shows  the  mould  into  which  our 
industrial  civiHzation  was  run  in  the  years  1760--1832.  It  is 
an  indictment  of  that  civilization  as  it  persisted  up  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  present  war. 

"  The  Times  "  has  had  four  series  of  articles  of  high  import- 
ance. One  series  has  been  republished  in  a  pamphlet  called 
"  The  Elements  of  Reconstruction,"  with  an  introduction  by 
Viscount  Milner.  A  second  series  was  on  the  resources  of  the 
empire,  written  by  Wilson  Fox,  and  led  to  the  formation  of 
the  Empire  Resources  Development  Committee.  A  third 
was  on  the  South  Wales  miners,  and  was  instrumental  in 
leading  the  Government  to  take  over  the  mines.  A  fourth 
was  on  the  industrial  situation  after  the  war,  and  is  a  powerful 
statement  for  workers'  control.  It  is  %vritten  by  Sidney  Webb, 
and  is  now  republished  in  pamphlet  form. 

Miss  Proud's  book  on  "  Welfare  Work,"  with  an  introduction 
by  Lloyd  George,  is  a  careful  compilation  of  the  improvements 
in  the  status  of  the  British  worker  instituted  by  employers,  the 
trade-unions,  and  the  state.  There  is  little  interpretation 
in  the  book,  but  a  valuable  mass  of  facts. 

There  is  unfortunately  nothing  comprehensive  on  the 
woman's  movement  in  its  present  development.  The  material 
in  existence  is  slight  and  imperfect.  Women  are  grouped 
with  men,  with  children,  with  the  community.  The  problem 
of  married  women  in  work  is  neglected.  The  woman's  duty 
to  the  race  is  still  religiously  emphasized,  as  if  the  results 
of  overwork  and  undernourishment  on  the  woman  herself 
were  of  no  more  significance  than  the  wearing  out  of  a  donkey- 
engine.  An  admirable  bibliography,  "Women  in  Industry," 
has  been  selected  by  L.  W.  Papworth  and  Dorothy  Zimmern. 
The  report  of  Miss  Anderson  to  the  Home  Office  and  Mrs. 
Bernard  Drake's  "  Women  in  Engineering  "  are  valuable  for 
the  area  they  cover.     Files  of  the  "  Woman  Worker,"  an 


352  APPENDIX 

organ  of  the  Women's  Trade  Union  Movement,  cover  many 
specific  instances.  "  Woman's  Efiort,"  by  A.  E.  Metcalfe, 
should  be  consulted.  But  the  book  of  the  movement  remains 
to  be  written.  What  is  needed  in  England  to  give  coherence 
and  self -consciousness  to  the  woman's  movement  is  as  good 
a  book  as  Katharine  Anthony's  "  Feminism  in  Germany  and 
Scandinavia." 

The  literature  of  the  internationalizing  of  thought  is  already 
large.  An  excellent  popular  book  in  the  United  States  has 
been  written  by  Robert  Goldsmith,  called,  "  A  League  to 
Enforce  Peace."  This  book  is  of  peculiar  value  to  an  English 
reader,  because  it  reveals  the  native  idealism  of  American 
thought  and  it  does  so  while  presenting  a  programme  of 
action.  No  recent  book  can  better  serve  to  give  the  Briton, 
desirous  of  apprehending  the  American  mind,  an  instance 
of  a  certain  combination  of  common  sense  and  fervent  hope 
that  we  like  to  believe  is  distinctively  American.  H.  N. 
Brailsford's  "  A  League  of  Nations,"  and  L.  S.  Woolf's  "  Inter- 
national Government  "  are  two  out  of  a  score  of  recent  English 
books  on  the  problem  of  a  European  and  world  settlement. 
Deeper  even  than  the  urge  of  all  recorded  movements  there 
is  spreading  a  desire  for  good  will  to  prevail.  The  victory  of 
Russian  liberalism  has  suddenly  set  the  thinking  of  mankind 
at  a  deeper  level.  The  mass  people  are  vaguely  but  hopefully 
turning  toward  some  larger  synthesis  than  a  narrow  national- 
ism. They  wish  something  that  will  give  peace  in  our  time, 
a  political  programme  that  will  not  defraud  the  instinct  of 
nationality  but  will  liberate  it  into  a  larger  vessel  than  the 
rigid  nation-state.  The  commonwealth  of  nationalities  is 
the  goal  toward  which  swift  currents  are  bearing  them — ^such 
a  Commonwealth  as  that  into  which  the  British  Empire  is 
slowly  transforming  itself.  The  European  world  is  waiting 
to-day  for  a  man  like  Lincoln  or  Francis  of  Assisi  to  appear 
who  will  state  these  hopes  of  humanity  in  clear  orderly  form. 

An  excellent  EngUsh  statement  of  the  Irish  situation  is 
given  in  the  "  Round  Table"  for  September,  191 6.  George 
Russell  ("  A.  E.")  handles  economics  with  his  own  admir- 


APPENDIX  353 

able  rhythm  in  his  volume,  "  The  National  Being  5  Some 
Thoughts  on  an  Irish  PoUty."  He  is  one  of  three  leaders 
in  the  Irish  Co-operative  Movement.  No  book  exists  to  give 
us  the  full  history  of  the  co-operative  movement  in  Ireland. 
It  should  be  written.  "  Labour  in  Ireland,"  by  the  late  James 
Connolly,  is  a  review  of  the  industrial  situation. 

For  an  understanding  of  the  young  men  of  Ireland  to-day 
the  files  for  recent  months  of  such  weekUes  as  the  '*  New 
Ireland"  and  "  Irish  Opinion"  are  necessary.  Nowhere  else 
is  there  so  bold  and  clear  an  expression  of  the  idealism  which 
is  penetrating  the  younger  elements  of  the  nation. 

Such,  then,  are  a  few  of  the  publications  of  comment  on 
the  vast  changes  now  under  way  in  the  British  nation.  The 
opportunity  is  ripe  for  a  book  on  the  British  commonwealth 
corresponding  to  Bryce's  "  American  Commonwealth." 

"I    SEE   BY   THE   PAPERS" 

Here  follow  a  few  quotations  from  recent  newspapers, 
periodicals,  and  public  men,  which  may  be  found  helpful  in 
estimating  the  drift  of  public  opinion. 

The  "Westminster  Gazette"  on  July  14,  191 7,  said  i — 

"  We  wish  it  were  possible  to  pass  a  short  Act  of  Parliament 
compelling  their  authors  (of  books  on  reconstruction)  to  sum  up  and 
print  on  the  last  page  in  a  few  simple  propositions  what  exactly  it  is 
that  they  want  us  to  do." 

A  well-justified  request.  What  those  workers  and  leaders 
whom  I  have  met  wish  to  see  changed  I  have  stated  in  the 
chapters  "  The  Social  Revolution  in  England,"  "  Workers' 
Control,"  "  Emancipation,"  "  Bowing  Them  Out,"  "  Poverty," 
*'  Where  the  Lane  Turns  ;"  and  in  the  appendix  under  "  Ed- 
ucation and  the  Workers,"  "  Land,"  "  Machinery,"  "  Em- 
pire Resources,"  "  Light  Railways,"  *'  Housing,"  "  Co-oper- 
ation, Socialism,  Syndicahsm,"  "  Irish  Railways,"  "  Irish 
Agriculture,"  '*  Child  Welfare."  It  is  foimd  in  the  books, 
pamphlets,  and  reports  I  have  listed, 

9 


354  APPENDIX 

Briefly,  what  is  taking  place  is  a  transfer  of  control  from 
privileged  classes  to  the  people.  It  is  the  establishment 
of  "  democratic  control  "  in  industry,  politics,  the  franchise, 
the  Irish  policy,  education.  "  Democratic  Control "  I  have 
tried  to  define  in  the  chapter  bearing  that  title.  Through 
democratic  control,  a  change  is  coming  over  the  British 
Commonwealth.  Politics  is  widening  the  Isasis  of  representa- 
tion. The  ownership  of  industry  is  tending  to  pass  in 
part  under  the  State  and  the  management  of  industry  is 
tending  to  pass  in  part  under  the  control  of  workers.  "jThe 
goal  of  political  endeavour  is  not  peace,  but  freedom." 

Sir  Horace  Plunkett  has  recently  stated  that  to  those  who 
cherished  an  undying  hatred  of  England  he  would  say  that 
the  England  of  the  war  is  wholly  unlike  any  England  that  has 
ever  been.  "It  is  dominated  by  labour  and  it  wants  to  do 
justice  to  Ireland.'* 

This  transference  of  power  from  the  few  to  the  many  is 
acknowledged  by  nearly  all  leaders  of  public  opinion,  though 
opposed  by  some. 

Dean  Inge  on  December  25,  191 6,  said  ; — 

"  After  the  war  the  control  of  our  destinies  will  pass  into  the 
hands  of  that  class  which  seems  to  me — I  hope  I  am  not  unjust 
to  them — ^to  be  at  present  not  the  most  fully  educated  in  those 
moral  questions  which  make  a  nation  great  and  united  and  happy — 
the  class  of  organized  labour.  It  is  they  who  will  decide  whether 
we  are  to  sink  or  swim.  It  is  useless  to.scold,  and  much'worse  than 
useless  to  flatter  them.'* 

Mr.  Prothero,  the  Minister  for  Agriculture,  has  said  (in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  July  19,  1917)   : — 

"  It  is  not  a  man's  calling  to  be  a  labourer  or  a  lawyer  or  even  a 
land  agent.  In  the  wider  sense  of  the  word,  a  man's  calling  is  to  be 
a  man.  It  is  important  to  provide  the  means  for  training  a  man  for 
his  hours  of  leisure  as  well  as  for  his  working  hours.  To  think^of 
wages  in  any  other  sense  would  in  these  democratic  days  be  heading 
straight  for  destruction." 


APPENDIX  355 

Sir  A.  Stanley,  president  of  the  Bo£.rd  of  Trade,  stated  on 
March  20  : — 

"  The  fact  has  to  be  faced  that  higher  wages  are  here  to  stay.  It 
is  all  to  the  advantage  of  employers  and  of  the  country  that  what 
are  termed  high  wages  shall  continue  after  the  war." 

Sir  Edward  Carson  on  May  24,  191 7,  said  ; — 

"  Labour  never  again  will  be  satisfied,  nor  ought  it  to  be  satis- 
fied, to  be  in  the  condition  that  it  was  before  the  war." 

Dean  Welldon  wrote  in  "The  Times  "  of  June  14,  1917  ; — 

"  If  it  were  necessary  to  express  in  a  single  phrase  the  prevailing 
sentiment  of  the  operatives  among  whom  I  live,  so  far  as  I  know 
them,  I  should  say  it  is  the  passion  for  equality." 

A.  Bellamy,  of  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen,  has 
said  I — 

"  Whether  nationalization  or  control  were  decided  upon,  it  ought 
to  be  made  unmistakably  clear  that  neither  system  would  be 
acceptable  to  railwaymen  unless  they  were  given  a  share  in  manage- 
ment." 

The  Triple  Industrial  Alliance  is  composed  of  the  Miners* 
Federation  ;  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen ;  and  the 
Transport  Workers'  Federation.  When  Robert  Smillie,  of 
the  Miners,  spoke  a  few  months  ago  at  a  conference,  he  spoke 
with  the  voice  of  1,300,000  workers.    He  said  ; — 

"  The  Triple  Alliance  has,  for  the  period  of  the  war,  acted  only 
on  the  defensive,  but  there  would  come  a  time  when  they  would 
formulate  proposals  of  aggressive  action.  The  mere  threat  ought 
to  be  suf&cient  to  bring  about  their  well-thought-out  democratic 
demands." 

In  referring  to  workers'  control  of  industry,  Graham 
Wallas  has  said  :— 

"  In  the  highly  organized  great  industries,  the  rights  of  control 
should  be  divided — some  of  them  assigned  to  the  State,  some  of 
them  to  the  persons  engaged  in  the  industry,  others  to  those  who 
contribute  the  capital.  Concentrated  directive  power  has  ceased. 
Distribution  of  power  is  a  fact.  What  is  the  percentage  of  control 
is  the  real  question." 


356  APPENDIX 

Thomas  Case  writes  from  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford,  on 
June  1 1,  191 7,  to  "  The  Times.; '  He  sees  three  serious  changes 
in  the  nation,  (i)  It  has  drifted  from  a  mixed  government 
of  King,  Lords  and  Commons  *'  into  an  absolute  democracy, 
or  unlimited  government  by  the  many  for  the  many  at  the 
expense  of  the  few."  (2)  The  traditional  Constitution 
was  based  on  the  rights  of  property  and  contract,  but  "  the 
nation  has  become  too  lenient  to  the  use  of  might,"  as  in  the 
strikes  of  trade  unionists.  (3)  "  The  nation  has  passed  into 
a  certain  approbation  of  revolution." 

He  points  out  that  under  the  spread  of  democracy  "  the 
present  lawful  owners  and  masters  would  lose  in  capital, 
in  income,  and  in  the  management  of  property ;  and,  in 
consequence,  as  servants  rose  masters  would  sink  in  wealth, 
social  status,  and  political  power,  until  ownership  and  master- 
ship would  become  little  more  than  names.  This  social  and 
political  revolution  would  enlarge  the  tyranny  of  the  many 
over  the  few  and  enrich  manual  labourers.  But  would  it 
be  for  the  permanent  good  of  the  nation  ?  " 

One  asks  which  nation  ?  For  as  the  Hammonds  have  shown 
in  "  The  Town  labourer,"  the  Industrial  Revolution  created 
two  nations  in  England — one  of  the  privileged  class,  and  one 
of  the  dispossessed.  And  to-day  "  men  and  women  refuse 
to  believe  that  England  must  always  remain  two  nations." 

That  "  the  present  lawful  owners  and  masters"  are  still 
more  than  "  names"  is  illustrated  by  advertisements  in  the 
same  newspaper,  under  date  of  June  6,  191 7.  I  select  two 
out  of  many  ; — 

"Required  experienced  House  Parlour- maid ;  3  in  family;  6 
maids  kept." 

"House-maid  required;  family  2;  6  maids." 

That  "  enriching  manual  labourers  "  would  not  necessarily 
wreck  England  is  suggested  by  the  reports  of  a  year  ago  made 
by  the  medical  officer  of  health  for  Woolwich.     He  wrote  ; — 

"  As  a  result  ol  the  increased  prosperity  in  Woolwich,  the  homes 
are  better  furnished,  the  provision  of  bedding  is  more  satisfactory. 


APPENDIX  357 

and  the  children  are  better  clothed.  With  better  financial  con- 
ditions many  of  the  homes  I  almost  despaired  of  have  become 
improved,  almost  beyond  beUef,  which  goes  to  prove  very  emphati- 
cally that  if  we  want  to  eUminate  the  slum  type  of  human  being 
and  the  slum  type  of  home  the  surest  and  quickest  way  is  to  give 
the  workman  a  good  hving  wage.  It  is  only  natural  that  wives  and 
mothers  get  tired  of  strugghng  against  a  tide  of  difficulties  which 
every  day  threatens  to  engulf  them." 

The  social  change  in  Great  Britain  is  the  result  of  many 
agencies.  What  Santayana  calls  "the  molecular  forces  of 
society"  have  undermined  the  old  classes  system.  This 
"  shifting  of  great  subterranean  forces"  is  felt  by  all,  though 
the  resultant  baffles  prophecy. 

Mr.  Balfour  (in  the  House  of  Commons  on  July  i8,  1917) 
has  spoken  of  "  the  vast  complicated  machinery  of  perma- 
nent officials  by  which  alone  you  can  carry  on  the  colossal 
business  of  government."  When  I  was  in  Dublin,  A.  E. 
said  to  me  that  it  is  ten  per  cent,  of  a  people  that  know 
what  they  want.  On  June  19,  191 7,  I-ord  Robert  Cecil  said 
in  the  House  of  Commons  : — 

"  If  fundamental  questions  arose,  they  had  to  be  determined 
by  force,  and  it  was  absurd  to  suppose  they  could  be  settled  by 
any  questions  of  counting  votes.  In  these  cases,  it  was  not  often  a 
majority  that  settled  them  ;  it  was  the  burning  heat  of  conviction, 
of  determination,  of  a  small  body  of  desperate  or  determined  men 
to  carry  through  what  they  believed  to  be  for  the  essential  welfare 
of  the  State.'* 

Recently,  I  heard  Bernard  Shaw  say  : — 

"  There  is  no  time  for  any  further  discussion,  so  I  will  say  a  few 
words.  When  the  war  came,  the  Labour  Party  decided  that  it  would 
co-operate  loyally  with  the  Government-  It  felt  that  it  could  not 
itself  run  the  war  and  the  Government.  In  its  mind  it  agreed 
with  the  decision  of  the  labour  leaders  in  joining  the  Government. 
It  could  not  well  do  otherwise.  And  yet,  at  the  recent  convention 
of  the  Labour  Party,  the  men  who  were  most  vigorously  applauded 
were  the  rebels,  the  men  who  had  stood  out  for  an  independent 
attitude  toward  the  war.  The  heart  of  the  Labour  Party  was  with 
these  men,  showing  that  its  old  hope  is  still  alive  of  one  day  taking 
command.    That  is  the  position  we  are  in  to-day  with  the  recon- 


358  APPENDIX 

struction.     The  workers  desire  control,  but  they  do  not  yet  fully 
know  how  to  take  it." 

The  movement  toward  democratic  control  is  vaster  than 
the  desires  or  competency  in  manipulation  of  any  single 
group  in  the  community.  Prince  Kropotkin,  in  his  farewell 
letter  to  England,  wrote  ; — 

"  There  are  moments  in  the  life  of  mankind  when  certain  general 
ideas  prepared  by  a  slow  evolution  of  the  mind  get  hold  with  an 
unprecedented  clearness  of  the  great  masses  of  men.  Such  a  moment 
takes  place  now," 

Many  institutions  other  than  those  of  capital  and  labour 
in  industry  are  included  in  this  movement  toward  demo- 
cratic control.  The  Established  Church  is  undergoing  the 
same  *'  shifting  of  great  subterranean  forces."  William 
Temple,  Albert  Mansbridge,  and  others  of  "  the  life  and 
Liberty  Movement,"  have  written  ; — 

"  Those  who  are  promoting  this  movement  are  convinced  that 
we  must  win  for  the  Church  full  power  to  control  its  own  life,  even 
at  the  cost,  if  necessary,  of  disestabhshment  and  of  whatever 
consequences  that  may  possibly  involve." 

Agriculture  is  being  examined  in  the  same  hard  dry  light  as 
industry.  John  Galsworthy  has  written  in  the  "  Observer  '* ; — 

'*  We  do  not  realize  the  great  deterioration  of  our  stock ;  the 
squashed-in,  stunted,  disproportionate,  commonized  look  of  the 
bulk  of  our  people.     Ugliness  has  become  a  matter  of  course." 

The  causes  of  this  ?  He  cites  the  great  industrial  towns, 
with  their  town-blight,  cramp,  poor  air,  poor  food,  and  herd 
life.  The  cure  ?  Fresh  air,  good  food,  sunUght,  and  a  modi- 
cum of  solitude.  In  short,  a  wise  agricultural  policy  of  arable 
land,  small  holdings,  garden  allotments,  and  decent  housing. 

Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  in  his  pamphlet,  "  A  Better  Way,"  has 
said; — 

"  The  evil  of  external  government  is  seen  at  its  worst  where 
England,  a  rich  country  with  eighty  per  cent,  of  its  population 
urban,  industrial,  and  commercial,  makes  laws  for  Ireland,  a  rela- 
tively poor  country  with  over  seventy  per  cent,  of  its  population 
rural  and  agricultural." 


APPENDIX  359 

Finally,  General  Smuts  has  essayed  the  problem  of  the 
coming  Commonwealth  with  an  authority  and  clarity  which 
no  other  statesman  of  these  years  has  shown.  On  May  15 
he  said : — 

"  No  political  ideas  which  we  have  evolved  in  the  past  will 
apply  to  this  world  which  is  comprised  in  the  British  Empire.  What 
I  feel  in  regard  to  all  the  empires  of  the  past,  and  even  in  regard  to 
the  United  States,  is  that  the  effort  has  always  been  towards  form- 
ing one  nation — always  one  nation.  All  the  empires  we  have  known 
in  the  past  and  that  exist  to-day  are  founded  on  the  idea  of  assimila- 
tion, of  trying  to  force  human  material  into  one  mould.  Your  whole 
idea  and  basis  is  entirely  different.  You  do  not  want  to  standardize 
the  nations  of  the  British  Empire;  you  want  to  develop  them 
towards  a  greater  nationality.  These  communities,  the  offspring 
of  the  Mother  Country,  or  territories  like  my  own,  which  have  been 
annexed  after  the  vicissitudes  of  war,  must  not  be  moulded  in  any 
one  pattern.  You  want  them  to  develop  on  the  principle  of  self- 
government,  and  therefore  your  whole  idea  is  different  from  any- 
thing that  has  ever  existed  before.  That  is  the  fundamental  fact 
we  have  to  bear  in  mind — that  this  British  Commonwealth  of  nations 
does  not  stand  for  standardization  or  conventionalization,  but  for 
the  fuller,  richer,  and  more  various  life  of  all  the  nations  comprised 
in  it." 


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